UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
3 1822 02663 4394
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SHIP'S LIBRARY.
U.S. S. MINNESOTA.
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LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
SAN DIEGO
J
V.I
STANFORD'S COMPENDIUM
OF
GEOGEAPHY AND TRAVEL
(NEW ISSUE)
.SIAITE (IF BiiLIVAi; : CARACAS.
STANFOED'S
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
(NEW ISSUE)
CENTRAL
AND
SOUTH AMERICA
VOL. I
A. H. KEANE, F.R.G.S.
AUTHOR OF 'Asia' and 'AFRICA' IN SAME SERIES; 'EASTERN GEOORAPHY '
'the BOER states'; 'ethnology'; 'man past and present';
ETC., ETC.
EDITED BY
Sir CLEMENTS MARKHAM, K.C.B., F.R.S.
president OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL AND HAKLUYT SOCIETIES
MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON: EDWARD STANFORD
12, 13, & 14 LONG ACRE, W.C.
1901
PREFACE
In the new issue of this series the single volume origin-
ally devoted to Central America, the West Indies, and
South America is replaced by two, each somewhat larger
than their predecessor. The very ample additional space
thus secured has been found no more than sufficient to
embody the more important results of the numerous
scientific expeditions made to almost every part of Latin
America during the last two decades by Whymper, Con-
way, Fitzgerald, Crevaux, Thouar, im Thurn, Eodway,
Ehrenreich, von den Steinen, Eeiss, Church, Stlibel, Ball,
Brigham, Hill, Eomero, Thompson, Seler, and many other
distinguished geographers, archseologists, naturalists, and
anthropologists. Many of the discoveries were of a
fundamental character, profoundly modifying the views
liitherto prevailing on such questions as the tectonic
constitution, both of Central and South America, the
West Indian orographic systems, the distribution of
plants and animals over the whole area, the cradle and
primitive migrations of Caribs and Arawaks ; the
ethnical relations of Toltecs, Aztecs, and Mayas, of
Vlll COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
Quichuas (Peruvians) and Aymaras (Bolivians), the
origin of the marvellous Tiahuanaco monuments, and of
other remains of native American culture. Attention
has also been claimed by the recent political changes in
the West Indies, by frontier questions, as between British
Guiana and Venezuela, and between Chili and Argentina,
by inter-oceanic ship-canal projects, by transcontinental
railway schemes, and by the altered economic conditions,
especially in Mexico, Chili, Brazil, and Argentina. All
these transformations called for adequate treatment, if
only to show that in the New World, material and moral
progress is no longer confined to " Anglo-Saxon America,"
and that henceforth the Hispano-Lusitanian common-
wealths enter into the comity of the other cultured
nations on a footing of absolute equality and independ-
ence.
In distributing the subject matter over these two
volumes, it has been found convenient to deviate somewhat
from the usual arrangement. Thus the European colonies
in South America — British, Dutch, and French Guiana —
have been transferred to the volume on Central America
and the West Indies, with which they have always been
popularly associated as well as intimately connected in
their history, traditions, commercial and ethnical relations.
The arrangement has the further advantage of giving a
distinct unity to the present volume, to which is reserved
the whole of the South American continent, so far as it
PREFACE ■ IX
forms a political domain complete in itself, and inde-
pendent of all Foreign Powers.
The publisher is indebted to Dr. F. P. Moreno for the
use of some of his excellent photographs of Argentina
and Patagonia ; to Sir Martin Conway for the illustra-
tions of lUimani ; to Mr. F. A. A. Simons for those in the
chapters on Colombia ; and to Mr. Pilditch of the Puerto
Cabello and Valencia Eailway Company for those relating
to Venezuela. Mr. Whymper has kindly consented to
the reproduction of the view of Chimborazo and Coto-
paxi from his Travels amongst the Great Abides of the
Equator, and the view of Aconcagua is taken by per-
mission from Mr, Fitzgerald's The Highest Andes.
The photographs of Kio de Janeiro are from Messrs.
Spooiier's Series, and a number of other coast towns have
been illustrated from photographs by Mr. Boote of Buenos
Ayres.
A. H. KEANE.
Odoler, 1900.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
General Survey — Physical and Biological Relations
North and South America : Analogies and Contrasts
North and South America : Physical and Climatic Contrasts
Seaboards — Fjords — Islands
Climate of South America .
Relief of the Land— The Inland Seas
Central Plains— The Great Fluvial Basins
Orography — The Andes
The Brazilian Uplands
Subsidence and Upheaval .
Flora
Fauna
The South American Neogaic Realm
PAGE
1
3
6
8
10
12
l:>
18
19
20
25
26
CHAPTER n
Early Ethical Relations
Inhabitants of South America ....
Primitive Man in South America of two Types
Physical Characters of the Aborigines
Their Polysynthetic Speech .....
Number and Distribution of the South American Languages
The Lingoa Geral ......
South American Stock Races and Languages
General Culture— Contrast between North and South
Iso-cultural Zones ...-••
The Cultureless Zone .....
The Civilised Zone ...•■.
30
31
3.3
34
35
36
38
42
43
45
48
xu
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TKAVEL
CHAPTER III
Later Ethnical and Historic Relations
The Discovery — Exploration of the Seaboard
Indian Expeditions — Early "N'oyages on the Amazons
Relations of the Wliites to the Aborigines
Miscegenation ....
Settlement of Brazil
The Negro Element
Mestizo Terminology
Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Administration
The Revolt .....
The Brazilian Empire and Republic
The Spanish South American States
CHAPTEK IV
Vexezdela
Extent — Boundaries — Disputed Frontiers
Physical Features — General Relief
Northern Uplands — Sierra de ]\Ierida — Coast Range
Cordillera de la Silla — The Southern Uplands : Sierras
and Pacaraima
Earthqxiakes — Igneous Phenomena
The Venezuelan Llanos
Scenery of the Llanos
Hydrography — Lake Maracaibo
Lake of Valencia .
The Orinoco Basin .
The Delta . . . .
Orinoco Scenery
Gulf of Paria — Climate
Flora ....
Fauna ....
Inhabitants — The Aborigines
Europeans and Mestizos
Prospects of Immigrants — Historic Retrospect
TopograjDhy — Chief Towns
Government — Social Condition
Pa rim a
CONTENTS
Xlll
CHAPTER V
Colombia
Boundaries — Extent— Areas and Populations
Physical Features — The Colombian Andes — Tlie Eastern Cordillci
The Central Cordillera
The Western Cordillera
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta — Hydrography — The Ma
dalena-Cauca Basin
The Magdalena ....
The Cauca .....
The Sinu, Atrato, San Juan, and Patia Rivers
Lacustrine Basins : Lakes Fuquene and Guatavita
Climate ....
Flora ....
Fauna ....
Inhabitants
The Cultured Peoples— The Chibchas
Primitive Mining Process .
The Wild Tribes— The Goajiros .
Topography
Chief Towns of Colombia .
The Discovery — Conquest and Settlement
Colonial Administration
The Revolution— Present Regime
Religion — Education — Natural Resources — Mineral Wealth
PAOE
113
116
118
120
121
122
125
126
128
129
131
133
134
135
137
138
140
141
149
150
151
152
CHAPTER VI
Ecuador
Extent — Boundaries — Areas and Populations
Relief of the Land — The Eastern Cordillera and Pacitic Coast
Range .
The Avenue of Volcanoes .
Chimborazo .
Tunguragua — Altar
Cotopaxi
Hydrography — The Rios Guayas and Esmeraldas
The Rio Pastasa .....
154
157
159
161
162
163
165
166
XIV
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRArHY AND TRAVEL
PAGE
The Rio Na]») ....... 167
Climate ....
168
Flora ....
170
Fauna ....
171
Inhabitants — The Quitus and Cara.s
173
The Jivaros
176
The Zaparos — The Piojes .
177
History — Colonial Rule
178
The Republic
179
Topogra])hy
180
Resources — Land Tenure .
182
Administration
183
The Galapagos Islands
184
CHAPTER YII
Peru
Extent — Area — Population
Physical Features : Plateaux and Cordilleras
The Negra and Blanca Ranges
The Cerro de Pasco and Carabaya Range .
The Volcanic Zone : Misti — Omate^Tutupaca
Underground Agencies — Thermal AVaters — Varied Scenery
Local Terminology
Hydrography — The Amazon System
The Marauon and Putumayo
The Ucayali System
The Huallaga and Javari — Pacific Drainage
Lacustrine Basins — Lake Titicaca
Climate
Flora
Fauna
Inhabitants — The Cultured Peoples — The Yuncas
The Aymaras
The Quicliuas — Empire of the Incas
The Uncultured Peoples — The Antis — The Chunchos
Topography — Railway Enterprise
Natural Resources — Vegetable Products — Guano — Minerals
Causes and Results of the Chilian "War — The Peruvian Corporatioi
Administration ......
186
188
189
190
191
192
195
197
198
200
201
202
204
205
206
208
210
214
216
227
230
231
CONTENTS
XV
CHAPTER VIII
Bolivia
PAGE
Boundaries — Extent — Population ..... 233
Physical Features — The Coast Range and the Cordillera Real . 236
The Cordillera de Cochabaniba and the Eastern Sierras . . 240
The Yungas Zone ....... 241
Hydrography — The Titicaca Closed Lacustrine Basin . . 242
The Madre de Dies and Beni Rivers .... 244
The Rio Grande and Mamore ..... 245
The Mojos Lacustrine Depression ..... 247
The Pilcomavd ....... 248
Climate ........ 249
Flora ........ 251
Fauna ........ 253
Inhabitants— The Mojos ...... 254
The Chiquitos ....... 256
The Chiriguanos ....... 257
The Bolivians — Historic Retrospect .... 258
Topography — Railway Projects ..... 259
Resources — Minerals — Vegetable Products . . . 265
Communications ....... 266
Administration . . . . .267
CHAPTER IX
Chili
Extent — Boundary Questions — Area — Population
Physical Features — The Central Plain
The Western Cordillera
The Cordillera de los Andes
Mercedario — Aconcagua — Tupungato
The Southern Andes — Igneous and Glacial Phenomena
The Chilian Archipelagoes
Magellan Strait — Tierra del Fuego
King Charles South Land .
Mas a Fuera — Juan Fernandez
Hydrography — The Chilian Coast Streams
h
269
273
274
276
278
283
285
287
290
293
294
COMPENDIUM OF GP^OGRAPHY AND TEAVEL
Lakes ......
Climate . .
Flora ......
Fauna ......
Inhabitants — The Araucanians
The Fuegians — Yaligans and Alacalufs
The Chilians .....
Topography — Railway Enterprise .
Natural Resources — Agricultural and ]\Iineral Wealth
Land Tenure — Emigration
Administration .....
PAGE
296
297
••300
302
304
•■'.07
310
311
323
325
326
CHAPTERS X AND XI
Argentina
Boundaries — Areas — Populations .
European Lnniigrants
Physical Features — General Survey
The Argentine and Patagonian Cordilleras
The Cordoba, A''entana, and Tandil Heights
Argentine Fuegia, and Staten Island
The Pampas ....
The Patagonian Plateau
Hydrogi'aphy — The Parana- Uruguay Basin and Delta
The Rios Bermejo and Salado
The Rio Uulce and the Cordoba Affluents
The Lower Parana and the Plate Estuary
The Upper and Lower Colorado Basins
The Patagonian Rivers and Lacustrine Basins
The Magellanic Lakes
Climate .....
Flora .....
Scenery of Gran Chaco
Fauna ....
Inhabitants — Prehistoric Peo]>les .
The Pampas Indians and Guarani of the Missions
The Calchaquis and Gran Chaco Indians .
The Tobas and Matacos
The Gauchos ....
The Patagonians ....
The Argentines and Italians
328
331
332
333
337
338
339
341
344
347
348
349
351
352
358
360
363
367
368
374
376
378
379
381
384
CONTENTS
Topograph}^
Historic Retrospect
Material Progress — Railway Enterprise
Agriculture and Stock-breeding .
Government — Political Situation .
Religion — Education — Defences .
CHAPTER XII
Uruguay
Extent — Area — Population
Physical Features — The Cuchillas
Hydrography — Tlie Uruguay River
Climate ....
Flora ....
Fauna
Inhabitants — The Charruas
The Gauchos and Uruguayans
Topography — Historic Retrosjject .
Railway Enterprise
Resources — The Meat Industries .
Government — Education — Finance
CHAPTER XIIT
Paraguay
Boundaries — Extent — Population .
Physical Features .....
Hydrography — The Paraguay River and its Affluents
The Upper and Middle Parana Basin
Climate ....
Flora and Vegetable Resources
Fauna ....
Stock-Breeding
Inhabitants — The Payaguas
The Guarani and the Missions
The Paraguayans .
Topography
Historic Retrospect — Administration
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
CHAPTERS XIV AND XV
Brazil
Extent — Frontier Questions — Area — Population .
Ethnical Elements of the Pojiulation and their Distribution
Physical Features — Seaboard — Headlands and Islands
Orography — The Serra do Mar
The Serra do Espinhaco
The Western Serras, Plateaux, and Campos
Geological Formations
The Brazilian Lowlands and Woodlands .
Hydrography — The Amazon — Estuary- — Lateral Channels and
Islands ....
The Amazonian Affluents .
The Jurua, Purus, and Madeira .
The Tapajos, Xingu, and Tocantins
The Rio Negro and other Northern Affluents
The S. Francisco and other Coast Streams
Climate .....
Flora . . ■ .
Fauna .....
Inhabitants — The Aborigines
The Tapuya, Tupi-Guarani, Carib, and Arawak Families
The Brazilian Negroes
The Europeans ....
Topography ....
Natural Resources — Mining Industry
Agricultural Prospects — Coffee Culture
Stock-breeding — Forest Produce .
Railway Enterprise — ^Trade
Government — Education — Finance — Armaments
PAGE
486
489
493
496
498
500
504
507
513
517
518
521
524
526
531
537
541
552
554
561
564
565
584
585
587
588
589
CHAPTER XVI
The Falkland Islands and South Gkorgia
593
LIST OF MAPS
1.
Political ilap of South America .
To face
'pciyc 1
2.
Map
of Prehistoric Inland Seas, etc.
16
3.
Ethnological Map of South America
42
4.
Map
of Venezuela
112
5.
Colombia .
152
6.
Ecuador
184
7.
Peru
232
8.
,,
Bolivia
268
9.
,,
Northern Chile
326
10.
,,
Southern Chile and Patagonia
372
11.
,,
Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay
418
12.
,,
the Harbour of Rio Janeiro
578
13.
Brazil
592
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
1.
Statue of Bolivar : Caracas
F,
ontispieee
2.
Chincliona ...
23
3.
Tajiir ......
24
4.
Rhea ......
25
5.
Ai-madillo .....
28
6.
Tlie First House erected on the Spanish Main, still
existing
at Cartagena ....
53
7.
Mestizos of Qnindio ....
65
8.
Anaconda ...
97
9.
Arawaks .....
99
10.
Caracas . . .
105
11.
La Guaira .....
107
12.
Bodyguard of the President of \'ene/;uela
110
1-3.
The Capitol, Caracas ....
112
14.
Stern-wheel Steamer on the Kio ^lagdalena .
123
15.
Toucan ......
1-33
16.
Muyscas
136
17.
Goajiros
139
18.
Bogota .....
142
19.
Main Street of Bogota — Ladies wearing ^Mantillas
143
20.
Main Road, Honda to Bogota
144
21.
Gateway of Cartagena
146
22.
Santa Marta ......
148
2.3.
Summit of Chimborazo
160
24.
Interior of the Crater of Cotojjaxi
164
2.")
Coconuco Lidian of Cotocaehi, Ecuador
173
26.
Water-carriers of Quito, Ecuador
175
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PACiE
27. Guayaquil . . . . . . .181
28. The Great Doorway, Tiahuanaco
209
29. Inca Indian ....
213
30. A Chuncho from tlie Montana
215
31. Lima .....
219
32. Callao Harbour
221
33. Bridge on the Oroya Railway
223
34. Arica .....
226
35. Illimani ....
238
36. Gorge near the Cuzanaco Mine, Illimani
239
37. Lake Titicaca ....
243
38. Capybara ....
253
39. La Paz de Ayacucho .
261
40. Aconcagua ....
280
41. Mount Tronador
283
42. Glacier Bay, Strait.s of Magellan
288
43. Guanaco ....
303
44. Yahgan ....
308
45. Iquique ....
313
46. Coquimbo ...
314
47. Valparaiso ....
316
48. The Museum, Santiago .
318
49. Coronel ....
321
50. Aconcagua : Pa.so de Los Contrabandista.s
335
51. Rio Santa Cruz
345
52. Lake Nahuelhuapi
354
53. Ancient Eastern Outlet of Lake San Martin
356
54. Lake Argentino . .
357
55. The Cordillon of the Andes at Last Hope Inlet
359
56. The Incas' Bridge on the Mendoza-Santiago Road
375
57. Gaucho ......
382
58. Tehuelche ....
385
59. Rosario ....
394
60. Avenida S. Martin, Mendoza .
399
61. Summit of the Usjiallata Pass (La Cumbre)
401
62. Cathedral of Cordoba
403
63. Mayo Avenue, Buenos Ayres
407
64. Municipal Buildings, La Plata
409
XXll
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
65. Museo de la Plata
411
66. Monte Video .
4.32
67. Colonia
434
68. Victoria Falls of the I-Guazu
460
69. Paraguay Tea
464
70. Palace of Lopez, Asuncion
479
71. Yellow-Tailed Howler and Yc
img .
542
72. Marmosets
544
73. Coati . .
546
74. The Paca
547
75. The Great Ant-Eater
548
76. Kayapo
554
77. Apiaca
555
78. Bakairi
556
79. Xaliuqua
5o/
SO. Bororo of Central Brazil
560
81. Street in Pernambuco
571
82. Street in Bahia
573
83. Rio de Janeiro
576
84. Rio Harbour
578
.li
POLITICAL ^MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA
ERRATUM.
The boundary between the Republic of Chili and the
Argentine Republic south of latitude 26° 52' 45" has
been referred for arbitration to the British Government.
The boundary line shown on the maps at pages
372 and 418 follows the Chilian claim ; the Argentine
claim has been accidentally omitted.
SOUTH AMERICA
CHAPTER I
GENERAL SUEVEY PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL RELATIONS
North and South America : Analogies and Contrasts — Physical and
Climatic Contrasts — Seaboard — Fjords — Islands — Climate of South
America — Relief of the Land — The Inland Seas — Central Plains— The
Great Fluvial Basins — Orography — The Andes — The Brazilian
Uplands — Subsidence and Upheaval — Flora — Fauna — The South
American Neogteic Realm.
North and South America : Analogies and Contrasts.
Between the " twin continents," as the northern and
southern sections of the New World have been called,
the transitions are everywhere so gradual that it is not
at first sight easy to say where one ends and the other
begins. But when the question is studied on a large-
scale map, we see at once that the true natural limits
are laid down, at the north-west extremity of the southern
section, by the Gulf of Darien (Oraba), which formerly
penetrated much farther inland than at present, if it did
not even present a free waterway between the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans. The course of such a channel, which
many engineers believe might be easily restored by the
VOL. I B
2 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
construction of an international ship-canal offering far
greater facilities than any of the alternative schemes
hitherto proposed, is clearly indicated by the trend of the
Atrato and S. Juan river valleys.
The joint fluvial axis of these streams, which are
separated only by a low water-parting considerably nearer
to the western than to the eastern ocean, runs from the
Caribbean Sea, where the Atrato debouches, nearly due
south to the mouth of the S. Juan below Bonaventura,
on the Pacitic coast of Colombia. While thus cutting
off the Andean system at this point from the Central
American Cordilleras, the two river valleys, which have
a total length of nearly 500 miles, constitute at the same
time the most natural parting-line between the two divi-
sions of the New World.
So obvious are the points of resemblance between
these divisions that they strike the eye at the first glance.
Both present the same rough triangular shape, with base
inclined from north-west to south-east, and sides of nearly
equal length converging to the apex southwards. In
superficial extent there is little difference, the northern
triangle scarcely exceeding the southern by one-eightli,
while a surprising parallelism is presented by the general
relief, the disposition of mountain ranges, tablelands, plains,
and fluvial basins. Thus to the Eocky ^fountains and
Central Sierras correspond the Andean Cordilleras, both
running close to the west coast, and ramifying at
intervals into two or even three branches, which enclose
vast plateaux often of great elevation. Indeed, the re-
semblances are here so striking, and extend to so many
secondary features, such as active and extinct volcanoes
with extensive lava-fields and other igneous matter over-
lying sedimentary formations, that the unity of the
orographic system from Fuegia to Alaska, first suggested
GENERAL SURVEY 6
by Humboldt, was long accepted by geographers without
demur.
On the Atlantic side the correspondence is maintained
by the Alleghanis in the north, and in the south by the
Sierra de Merida, the Sierra de Mar, and the Brazilian
highlands. In both regions the western and eastern
mountain systems enclose boundless central plains —
prairies, savannahs, llanos, pampas, woodlands — -which
are traversed in much the same directions by a few
fluvial arteries, rivalling or surpassing in volume, length,
and drainage area the great rivers of the eastern hemi-
sphere. With two important exceptions — Mackenzie and
Yukon — the oulfall is to the Atlantic, recipient also of so
many running waters on its eastern seaboard. Thus the
Churchill, St. Lawrence and Hudson trending east, and
the Missouri -Mississippi with a southerly course, find
their exact counterparts in the Orinoco and Amazon on
the one hand and the Parana-Paraguay on the other.
Physical and Climatic Contrasts
But these analogies, which lie somewhat on the
surface, are perhaps more than balanced by the contrasts,
which are in some respects of greater moment, and on
the whole more favourable to the north than to the south.
Foremost amongst these is the position in respect of the
poles and the equator. Here the discrepancy is enormous,
sufficient in fact to constitute the southern division
mainly a tropical, the nortliern mainly a temperate region.
To be sure, much of North America seems to lie within
the Arctic Circle, or near enough to be called Ai'ctic. But
the absolute area of this section, consisting so largely of
archipelagos with extensive intervening water-surfaces,
is less than is commonly supposed, and is amply compen-
4 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TPtAVEL
sated by the bulging out and consequent great average
breadth of the continent in more favourable latitudes.
But the very opposite is the case in South America,
where the bulging takes place about the equator, with a
consequent excess of heat and moisture, and where, beyond
the Tropic of Capricorn, the land tapers so rapidly south-
wards that but a relatively small area is extra-tropical.
Hence only a fraction of the southern continent would be
suitable for European settlement were the tropical heats
not tempered by the great elevation of the Brazilian and
Andean uplands, and by the moderating influence of sea
breezes from the Atlantic. Owing to these favourable
conditions the general climate of South America is more
equable and cooler by several degrees than that of the
African continent. Thus the isothermal line of greatest
heat, which runs from the isthmus of Panama mainly
along the seaboard to Cape Sao Roque, intersecting the
equator at the Amazon estuary, ranges from about 80°
to 82° F., while the temperature of the corresponding
heat zone on the east side of the Atlantic normally
exceeds 86" F.
Other important consequences, also to the advantage
of the north, follow from this general latitudinal position
of the twin continents. During the glacial epochs,
whether simultaneous or not on either side of the equator,
a fairly warm temperature must have at all times pre-
vailed in inter-tropical South America, with the result
that the running waters suffered no serious arrest, but
continued their natural process of development without
interruption except in the sub-arctic lands of the extreme
south.
Hence on the Chilian coast and in Fuegia alone are
found those peculiar fjord-like formations which, as in
Scandinavia and Greenland, are due to the grinding action
GENERAL SURVEY 5
of glaciers or frozen streams. Elsewhere- the rivers have
excavated their beds down to their natural levels, and in
so doing have drained nearly all the old lacustrine basins
and effaced most of the falls and rapids which formerly
abounded in many districts. Cataracts still survive in
the Colombian and Peruvian Andes, on the Parana, the
Madeira and elsewhere ; but all the large lakes have dis-
appeared except Titicaca and the still periodically flooded
Mojos basin about the Amazon-Parana water-parting, at
the northern extremity of the old Pampean Sea.
Even Titicaca, though still an imposing sheet of water,
is little more than a highland loch compared to its vast
dimensions in Secondary and Tertiary times. " Geological
examinations show that Titicaca was once one of the large
lakes of the world, and that it has slowly been drying
up." -^
How different from all this the picture presented by
the northern continent, where glacial action attained a
greater development than in any other part of the world,
where the ice-cap, thousands of feet thick, advanced and
retreated more than once over vast areas millions of miles
in extent, and where icebergs in great numbers are still
annually discharged from the Greenland and Alaskan
glaciers. Hence the mighty streams held in their icy
fetters till far into the Pleistocene age have not since
had time to arrive at maturity. They still tumble over
some of the grandest falls on the globe, and have left
undrained the great lakes of the Laurentian basin and
many others strewn over the Canadian Dominion, while
the seaboard is so finely diversified with fjords, gulfs, bays,
and other inlets that it presents 26,000 miles of contour-
lines compared with the 19,000 miles of the somewhat
monotonous South American coastlands. Even this
1 Col. G. E. Church, Geogr. Jour. (Oct. 1898), p. 401.
6 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TRAVEL
might seem a liberal allowance until we find that Europe,
for instance, with little more than half the area, can show
a seaboard of no less than 16,000 miles, including all
the windings of the coasts.
Seaboard — Fjords — Islands
Practically the South American coasts, always ex-
cepting Chile, Patagonia, and Fuegia, have no windings
or inlets beyond the relatively insignificant Gulfs of
Darien and Venezuela in the north and Guayaquil on
the west, with the still smaller bays of Eio de Janeiro
and Bahia on the east side. The few other indentations
are not marine inlets, but great fluvial estuaries, which by
the deposits of silt are being slowly transformed to deltas
like that of the Orinoco, or else converted into alluvial
plains like that of the Eio Colorado. Formerly the lower
reaches of this Pampean stream presented the aspect of
a very large estuary running over 100 miles inland,
though still greatly inferior to those of the Plate and
Amazon, which are amongst the most typical and ex-
tensive of such formations in the world.
There is also a remarkable absence of islands or insular
groups, South America showing in this respect a close
analogy with the two other great Austral lands. As
South Africa has its Madagascar and Southern Australia
its Tasmania, so our continent terminates southwards in
Tierra del Fuego. The few insular groups in the Caribbean
Sea should either be grouped with the West Indian system
(Leeward Chain) or else regarded as almost still forming
part of the mainland (Trinidad, Tobago). In even closer
connection with the mainland are Chiloe, the Chonos
Archipelago, Wellington, and the other islands which fringe
the Chilian seaboard and merge south-eastwards in the
GENEPvAL SURVEY
Fiiegian group. In order to discover any other insular
formations that may fairly be regarded as geographical
dependencies of South America, the gaze must sweep the
eastern horizon to the British groups of the Falklands
and Georgia in the Austral seas, and farther north to
another Trinidad and Fernando Noronha, mere specks
lost in the Atlantic waters, but jealously guarded by the
Brazilian State.
Turning westwards, we shall with difficulty detect the
Malpelo and Cocos rocks claimed by Colombia, while
attention will be arrested by the relatively large Gala-
pagos cluster, which, being cut by the equator, belongs
politically to Ecuador, but, owing to the exceptional
interest of its fauna and flora, is the common property
of all naturalists. Still farther south the S. Feliz and
S. Ambrosio reefs lead along the same meridian (80° W.)
to the islets of Mas a Fuera and the neighbouring Juan
Fernandez, the latter for ever associated with De Foe's
immortal hero, friend of young and old alike. All
these groups, lying between 25°-35° S. lat., are Chilian
dependencies.
Subjoined are tabulated, for purposes of reference,
some of the leading physiographic points of the twin
continents : —
Superficial area
Extreme length
Coast-line
Greatest distance from centre
to coast
Culminating point .
Greatest river drainage area
North America.
. 7,100,000 sq. m.
4,600 miles
26,000 ,,
1,800 „
18,100 feet
(iMt. St. Elias)
. 1,767,000 sq. m.
(Mississippi-Missouri)
South America.
6,880,000 sq. m.
4,500 miles
19,000 ,,
1,700 ,,
23,080 feet
(Aconcagua)
2,722,000 sq. m.
(Amazon)
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TKAVEL
Climate of South America
It is often stated, and indeed assumed, that the climate
of the western is considerably colder than that of the
eastern hemisphere. But the assumption has to he taken
with great reserve. In fact it cannot be accepted as a
whole, and while perfectly true of North America, this
somewhat hasty generalisation breaks down completely
when applied to the southern division. The mean tem-
perature of insular regions, and physically as well as in
other respects America is an island, is largely determined
by the surrounding waters, more so perhaps than by the
general relief of the land wherever the altitude is not
excessive. Now South America is washed by two great
marine currents — the warm Atlantic stream on the east
side, and the cold Antarctic wave on the Pacific side — and
these are normally accompanied by corresponding aerial
currents. Under ordinary conditions such opposites
might be expected to neutralise each other, or estajjlish
a general equilibrium. But not so in this continent,
where the effects of the western cold winds and waters
are intercepted and confined to a narrow strip of coast-
lands by the Andes, pierced only in South Patagonia
by rivers and sounds, whereas on the east side the warm
marine and atmospheric currents have much freer scope,
thanks partly to the lower elevation of the Brazilian
uplands, and also to the great fluvial valleys, through
which, as through open gates, the tepid Atlantic breezes
find easy access to the very foot of the Cordilleras.
Thus it happens that a kind of diagonal climatic
relation is set up between the twin continents. To the
narrow Pacific seaboard of South America corresponds
the Ijroad Atlantic seaboard in the north, with this differ-
GENEKAL SUKVEY / 9
ence, that here it is the cold winds and waters that have
full and almost unimpeded play right across the central
regions to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Similarly,
the conditions on the South American Atlantic coastlands
are repeated on the North American Pacific coastlands,
where prevail the warm equatorial currents, and where
also their range is limited by the great elevation of the
Sierras and Rockies. Thus is explained the curious
phenomenon that the mean temperature of North America
is lower by perhaps 20° F., and that of South America
higher than, or at least equal to, that of the Afro-
European regions.
Why then, it may be asked, is Central Patagonia so
bleak and arid ? The answer is, partly because the high
latitude here tells, and also because here the cold Austral
winds sweep over the plains east of the Andes unimpeded
by any obstacle till they reach the Tandil and Ventana
heights between the Colorado basin and the Plate estuary.
Moreover, if very cold in winter, Patagonia is very hot
in summer, which may in some measure be explained on
the cosmic ground that in the southern hemisphere summer
occurs when the earth is nearest, and winter when it is
farthest, from the sun. But from this it is not to be in-
ferred that, as commonly supposed, the southern has as
a whole a lower mean temperature than the northern
hemisphere. On the contrary, there are good reasons for
believing, with the late Professor John Ball, " that the
southern hemisphere is not colder than the northern, and
that all arguments based upon an opposite assumption
must be set aside." ^
^ A^tes of a Naturalist in South America, p. 275.
10 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
Relief of the Land — The Inland Seas
No less simple than its contour- lines is the general
framework of the southern continent, wliich seems to
have undergone more than one transformation since
Secondary times. At first it may be conceived as an
archipelago, or at least a group of three or four slightly
connected huge masses much more elevated in the east
than in the west, and now represented chiefly by the
greatly denuded Brazilian highlands on the Atlantic, and
the, at that time, very much lower Andean chain on
the Pacific side, the latter prolonged eastwards by the
transverse Sierra de Merida with its eastern extension
facing the Caribbean Sea, the former prolonged westwards
by the Central Brazilian uplands. In the south the
Ventana and Tandil heights projected eastwards to the
Atlantic without cutting off the old Colorado basin from
the great inland sea, which probably flowed from the
northern foot of the Patagonian plateau continuously
northwards between the Andean and Brazilian uplands to
the southern slopes of the Sierra de Merida. This great
" Mediterranean," however, must have been contracted to
relatively narrow sounds or channels at three points — in
the south between the Andean and Ventana uplands,
farther north between the Central Brazilian and Bolivian
Cordilleras, and again between the Venezuelan and
Colombian highlands.
Then, as the Andean system gradually rose higher and
higher, while the Brazilian was lowered by subsidence
and a prodigious extent of denudation, the inland waters,
amid which the Ventana, Cordova, and other smaller
masses stood out like islands, broken into two or three
secondary basins by the closing of the narrows at the
GENEEAL SURVEY 11
points above indicated. The two northern seas would
appear to have been somewhat rapidly transformed —
partly by the abundant sedimentary deposits washed
down from the encircling hills, partly also perhaps by up-
heaval — to the fluvial valleys which now constitute the
Orinoco and Amazon systems.
But the southern basin, rediscovered, so to say, and
aptly named the Pampean Sea by Colonel Church,^
seems to have persisted longer. Under the twofold
specified influence this marine inlet became detached
first from its northern section, the scarcely yet obliter-
ated Lake Mojos, and was then in due course transformed
to the boundless diluvial and alluvial valley now
traversed in all directions by the ramifications of the
Parana-Paraguay river system.
Thus were slowly welded together the wholly or
partly detached masses of former ages, and, that such
may well have been the geological record of the continent
thus created, is made highly probable by its present
constitution, and especially by the extraordinary
simplicity of its hydrographic and orographic outlines.
How else explain, for instance, the still surviving inter-
communications of all these great river systems, inter-
laced not at their mouths, as we see in the common
Brahmaputra-Ganges delta, but in their upper reaches,
where the Orinoco is linked by the Cassiquiare with the
Amazon, and the Amazon with the Parana by an intricate
network of channels and backwaters flowing now one
way, now another. Here the slopes of the divide are so
gently inclined that a mere snag or a slight landslip
suffices to divert the currents from one basin to the
other. " Owing to their horizontality, all the plains
from the mouth of the Maniore to the Pilcomayo " (that
1 Geogr. Jour., October 1898.
12 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
is right across the main Amazon- Parana divide) "are
inundated from October to March, and present the
aspect of a great ocean studded with green islands.
Across the Monde Grande a simply overturned tree would
change the course of the waters." ^
Central Plains — The Great Fluvial Basins
From the Venezuelan llanos to the Argentine pampas,
and at one time even to the Patagonian tableland, the
bed of the postulated inland sea has thus been main-
tained for many ages nearly at the same dead level,
slightly upraised or filled in by detritus uniformly
deposited, without anywhere developing any decided
water-partings. The marine waters have merely been
displaced by a single vast fluvial basin, which during the
summer rains resumes in its upper reaches the aspect of
a great inland sea many thousand square miles in extent,
and discharges through three channels into the Atlantic
Ocean. So fine is the pampean mud that in many
extensive tracts not a rock or a rolled pebble is to be
seen. When a native of the Mojos valley, which is still
covered with this muddy silt, sets out on a journey to
the neighbouring uplands, he is asked to bring back a
stone or two that the people may see what such things
are like. In some districts the old " beached margent
of the sea" may be followed for many miles, as below
Eosario, where, " after the pampean beds were formed
and their southern and eastern margin began to emerge
from the waters, the ocean along the shallow coast rolled
up on the gently inclined plain quantities of shells, lianks
of which, miles in length, may be seen to-day far inland,
giving evidence, by their curvature and general appear-
^ Castelnau, quoted by Church, loc. cit. p. 389.
GENERAL SURVEY 13
ance, of having been piled up along an ancient coast-
line." ^ These shells belong to species still living in
the neighbouring Atlantic waters, and embedded in the
Pampean formation are also found widely distribiited
the fossil remains of the mastodon, megatherium,
mylodon, and other gigantic members of the Pleistocene
South-American fauna. Such huge beasts, with whom
early man himself was undoubtedly associated, found
ample sustenance in the rank vegetation that flourished
amid the swamps and shallows of the slowly subsiding
Pampean Sea. The human remains, presenting types
similar to those of the Botocudos and some other sur-
viving primitive races, are Ibund distributed over a -wide
area both in the marine basin and on its eastern and
western margins. The only liighway between these two
sections of the continent " must have crossed the elevated
region at the head of the Pampean Sea, lying between
17^ and 19° S. lat., wliich is still the only route in use
for communication by land between Bolivia and Matto
GrOsso " {ib.).
In the northern or Amazonian section of the old
inland sea the evidence of former marine action is quite
as strong as Church has found it iir the southern section.
Here are everywhere to be seen horizontal sandstone
and argillaceous beds ranging from 100 to 1000 feet in
height, and constituting a vast system of sedimentary
strata which can be traced from the foot of the Cordillera
to the Atlantic. Even as far inland as the Pebas terraces
of the Peruvian Maranon, Or ton noticed thick beds of
marine shells disposed in layers of diverse coloured clays,
in which were represented as many as seventeen extinct
species of late Tertiary times. AVhen those beds were
formed the Maranon, after forcing its way through the
1 Church, loc. cit. p. 396.
14 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Manseriche gorges, must have entered the marine basin
through an estuary, wliich may be conceived as slowly
moving eastwards according as the present Amazonian
plains were filled in. It has even been suggested that
in the Tertiary epoch the main stream flowed, not east
to the Atlantic, but through the Orinoco-Negro depression
towards the Caribbean Sea. In support of this view it
has been pointed out that the marine shells of the
Maranon cliffs resemble those of the West Indian waters.
If so " the bluffs of Monte Alegre, the Santarem heights,
and the other hills approaching the banks of the Amazon
at the Obidos narrows, should be regarded as the remains
of the ridge or dyke which formerly closed the basin of
the inland sea and of the lakes ascending in terraces up
the slopes of the Andes to Lake Titicaca." ■*
The southern (Pampean) section of the ancient
Mediterranean had a probable length of 1400 miles, w'ith
a mean breadth of over 400 miles, and an area (including
the Mojos section, 115,000) of about 715,000 square
miles. But the drainage area of the present Parana
basin is, of course, much greater, because it includes all
the surrounding slopes. It greatly exceeds a million
square miles, and the other interlaced fluvial systems
present the same magnificent proportions, as shown in
the subjoined table of the South American drainage
arcas,^ where the enormous difference between the
Atlantic and Pacific domains is specially noteworthy.
The ancient inland sea was, like the Eurafrican Mediter-
ranean, an inlet of the Atlantic; consequently the running
waters by which it has Ijeen replaced continue to dis-
charge into the same reservoir.
^ Reelus, vol. xix. p. 99.
- Prepared on fresh data by Dr. Alois Bliulau for Petermann's Mitt.,
ami reproduced in Geogr. Jour. (June 1897), p. 667.
GENEEAL SUllVEY
15
Atlantic Slope
Atrato .......
Magdalena-l'aiiea .....
Coast streams between Maf^clalena and Orinoco
Orinoco .......
Cojist streams, thence to Amazon
Amazon-Tocantins .....
Coast streams, thence to Parnahiba .
Parnaliiba ......
Coast streams, thence to Sao Francisco
Sao Francisco ......
Coast streams, thence to tlie Plate
Plate-Urnguay ......
Colorado-Negro .....
Coast streams, thence to Cape Froward
Total Atlantic
Pacific Slope
Colombian rivers ....
Ecuador ,,
Peruvian ,, ....
Chilian „ ....
Total Pacific
Inland Drainage
Lakes Titicaca and Aullagas
Landlocked basins, thence southwards
Total Inland
Su.mmauy
Atlantic ......
Pacific ......
Inland .....
Total area drainage of South America
Sq. Miles.
24,500
102,500
94,500
364,500
190,500
2,722,000
85,500
133,500
106,500
251,500
333,000
1,198,500
464,000
210,000
6,382,500
35,000
41,500
125,000
206,000
407,500
76,000
30,000
106.000
6,382,500
407,500
106,000
6,896,000
Orography -The Andes
The mountain ranges are laid down on the same
broad lines, and liere also, while the same symmetry and
16 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TEAVEL
simplicity are everywhere conspicuous, the presence of a
later Miocene marine basin seems suggested by the contrasts
and resemblances of the Andean and Brazilian systems.
In early Miocene times the Andes must have presented
the appearance of a low unbroken coast range, still,
however, elevated enough to form an effective barrier
between the Pacific and Atlantic basins. But throughout
the later Miocene and the Pliocene epochs they were
subjected to the same slow process of upheaval as the
Alpine and Himalayan systems in the Old World, with
the result that from Fuegia to the Atrato they constitute
on their outer (seaward) face one of the loftiest and
most regular mountain ranges on the globe.
A nearly due south -north trend is maintained for
about half its entire length, from the Strait of Magellan
to Arica in Peru, where it develops a great westward
curve round to the Gulf of Darien. But throughout
this northern section the same and even greater symmetry
is displayed, the rocky walls keeping closer to the sea
and at some points plunging sheer into the abysmal
depths. Thanks to this astonishing uniformity, Andes
(Antis), the native (Quichua) name of the Peruvian
section, has been naturally extended to the whole
system by the Spaniards, to whom the Pacific Coast
Eange as far as Fuegia is known as the Cordillera
de los Andes, or simply the Cordillera ^ in a pre-
eminent sense. Its mean altitude, estimated at about
14,000 feet, is so uniformly maintained that, seen
from the Pacific, the crest looks like a perfectly regular
bastion surmounted at intervals by sharp or rounded
pinnacles, representing either old crystalline rocks or
else extinct or still active craters. Even the geological
1 From Corda, a cord or rope, as if to indicate the precision with which
the crest has been drawn in a line with the coast.
-^ ^^'
A Map »l>.j«-;ni;
THE ANDEAN CILUX. TIIK l!lL\Zn,IA>- mGIIl.iVl«I)S
AND THE PREHISTORIC INLAND SEAS-
GENERAL SURVEY
17
Ibrmation is everywhere much the same, as shown, for
instance, by the specimens brought back by the Fitz-
Gerald expedition from Aconcagua and Tupungato in
the South and by Mr. Whymper from the equatorial
Andes in the North (Bonney). The peaks and cones
themselves, ranging from over 15,000 to 23,000 feet,
are distributed with singular even-handedness throughout
the whole system, from the Chilian Aconcagua, Queen
of the New Warld,^ to the Chimborazo of Ecuador, long
wrongly supposed to be the culminating point of both
Americas, but, as shown in the subjoined table, consider-
ably over-topped by several of the giants in the Cordillera
itself : —
Region.
Peak or Cone.
Height in Feet
Authority.
Bolivia
Sorata .
23,500 (?)
Conway.
Argentina .
Aconcagua
23,080
FitzGerald.
Bolivia
Illimani .
22,500
Conway.
Chile .
Tupungato
22,000
Gus.sfeldt.
Peru .
Huasean
22,000
Hiudle.
J)
Hualcan
21,000
Minchin (?),
,,
Huandoy
20,800
Wiener.
Ecuador
Chimborazo .
20,498
Whymper.
>)
Antisana
. 19,335
,
>> •
Cayarabe
19,186
,,
Peru .
Tutupaca
18,960
Church.
,,
Misti .
18,500
Weddell.
Colombia
Tolima .
18,400
A''ergara.
,,
Mesa de Hcrveo
18,340
Andre.
,,
Huila .
. 18,000
Reiss and Stubel.
Ecuatlor
Sangai .
17,464
))
, , ,
lUiniza .
17,405
Colombia .
Ruiz
17,390
Vergara.
Venezuela .
Concha^
Coluna J
15,420
Codazzi.
^ Unless she is to be dethroned by Sorata, whose old claims were
tentatively revived in 1896 by Sir Martin Conway {Geogr. Jour. November
1898).
VOL. I C
18 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
The Brazilian Uplands
Between these recently constructed ramparts of the
Pacific and the rugged weather-beaten Atlantic heights,
the contrast is in every respect complete. Here sym-
metry and uniformity are replaced by the wildest con-
fusion, and instead of young formations still preserving
their original contour-lines almost intact under, in many
places, cloudless skies, we have a chaotic grouping of very
old rocks — crystalUne and Archsean, with schists and early
sandstones — here and there underlying Cretaceous and
other Mesozoic deposits, and again exposed, reduced in
height and carved into a great number of separate sections
by atmospheric agencies in a region which, for untold
a?ons, must have always been one of the wettest on the
globe. " The eastern half of Brazil is undoubtedly ancient
land, presenting no trace of Secondary strata, except in
small detached areas near the coast, and where more
recent Tertiary deposits are to be found only in a portion
of the great valley of the Amazon. A mountain range,
having various local designations, but which may best he
called the Serra ^ da Mantiqueira, extends from the
neighbourhood of Sao Paulo to the lower course of the
Itio Sao Francisco for a distance of 1200 miles, and this
is mainly composed of gneiss, sometimes passing into true
granite, syenite, or mica-schist; and the same may be
said of the Serra do ]\'Iar, a less considerable range lying
between the main chain and the coast. To my mind the
conclusion is irresistiljle, that ancient Brazil was one of
^ It should be noticed that in the Portuguese domain the form Serra
takes the place of the Spanish Sierra, a " saw," in reference to the serrated
crests of eroded mountain ranges. Similarly the nasal Sao stands for San
(Saint), as in Sao Francisco (Brazil) and Sa/i, Francisco (California). The
particles do, da are also contracted Portuguese forms replacing the Spanish
del, de la ("of the," mas. and fem.).
GENEKAL SURVEY 19
the greatest mountain regions of the earth, and that its
summits may very probably have exceeded in height any
now existing in the world. What we now behold are
the ruins of the ancient mountains, and the singular coni-
cal peaks are, as Liais has explained, the remains of some
harder masses of metamorphic gneiss, of which the strata
were tilted at a high angle." ^
Thus, while the Cordillera has been steadily rising
till it forms the loftiest range on the globe next to the
Himalayas, the Brazilian system has been worn down to
a mean altitude of probably not more than 4000 or 5000
feet. Even the culminating point of Brazil — Itatiaya
(Itatiaiossii), in the Mautiqueira range, falls below 10,000
feet, and is reduced by some measurements to no more
than 8900 feet. The loftiest peak of the picturesque
" Organs " group in the Serra do Mar is little over 6600
feet, while those of the ranges forming the divides between
the Sao Francisco and the Tocantins and other southern
affluents of the Amazon nowhere exceed 6000 feet. In
the extreme north the Pacaraima chain towards the
Cruiana and Venezuelan frontiers terminates in the
mighty Eoraima mass (7384), which is a point on the
recently determined British-Venezuelan frontier. Paca-
raima consists also of very old (Archaean and Palaeozoic)
formations, and its base must have been washed by
the ancient South -American Mediterranean. Farther
west the still more elevated Guamapi range culminates
in Mount Icutu, which has an estimated altitude of
11,000 feet.
Subsidence and Upheaval
That subsidence as well as erosion has contributed to
modify the character of the old Brazilian Alps is evident
^ Ball, op. cit. p. 314 sq.
20 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
from the now well-established fact, that while the land
has gained on the Pacific side it has been largely en-
croached upon by the Atlantic waters on the Brazilian
seaboard. Hence the remark made by some physio-
graphists that South America is moving westwards, and
is now nearer to Australia and farther from Africa than
in Secondary times. On the coast of Chile there are
terraces due to erosion, but also others which are unques-
tionably marine beaches, affecting the form of flights of
steps, and strewn to a height of over 1000 feet with thick
beds of shells belonging to the species still surviving in
the neighbouring seas.
But the opposite phenomenon is seen on a large scale
on the Atlantic side, and especially about the Amazon
estuary. Here the long-continued invasions of the sea
are not only arresting the formation of a delta by dis-
tributing the sedimentary matter all round the shelving
shores of Guiana, but are, so to say, transforming the
great estuary to a marine gulf. The main stream has
already lost over 400 miles of its lower course, and the
old river banks are now permanently flooded as far sea-
wards as the 100-fathom line. Hence it is that the
Parnahyba and several otlier streams which formerly
joined the south bank now find their way to the coast
in independent channels. Even the Tocantins has almost
ceased to be an attiuent of the Amazon, with which it is
connected only by an intricate system of shifting lateral
branches.
Flora
One of the most eloquent passages in Buckle's History
of Civilisation in England was inspired by the study of
animal and vegetable life in Brazil, which, excluding the
Andean plateaux and the narrow southern extremity.
PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL RELATIONS 21
may be taken as in this respect the typical region, of the
whole continent. It is pointed out that the progress of
mankind beyond the savage state has here been retarded,
and even arrested, by the prevailing excess of heat and
moisture, a combination far more favourable to the de-
velopment of vegetation and of the lower than of the
higher animal organisms. Hence no other region of the
globe except the ]\Ialay lands, where like conditions pre-
vail, can compare with South America in the relative
extent, vigour, and variety of its forest growths, and of
its exuberant insect life. For a vivid picture of sunless
and trackless w^oodlands of boundless extent, the miud
turns less readily to the Congo forest zone, vast though it
be, than to the densely-timbered AmazoniEin plains, which
are continued with little interruption far up the eastern
slopes of the Cordillera, through the Guianas round to
the shady rivers Magdalena and Atrato in the far north-
west, and in other directions over a great part of
Southern Brazil, of Corrientes and Gran Chaco, traversed
by all the northern and western head-waters of the
Parana-Paraguay system.
Even in the uplands a rich arborescent vegetation
creeps up to within 3000 feet of the snow-line, which,
however, is here, as elsewhere, a " variable quantity,"
depending, as it does, not so much on latitude as on the
aspect of the land, light and shade, moisture and other
local conditions. Indeed :\Ir. Whymper objects to the
expression altogether, seeing " little utility in retaining a
phrase which is incapable of definition, and is interpreted
so variously " (p. 347). In the Cordilleras it seems to
range from as low as 1 4,500 to 16,700 and even 17,000
feet, and this must be so especially in the equatorial
region, where flowering plants, such as gentians, ranun-
culi, geraniums, mallows, fuchsias, verbenas, asters, and
22 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
other comiMsitce occur between 14,000 and 16,000 feet.
Mosses and lichens mantle the summit of Corazon
(15,870), and on other slopes reach much higher, while
currant bushes and tall grasses 8 to 9 feet high fall little
below 14,000 feet.
In the same region, and as far south as Bolivia, the
eastern escarpments of the plateaux exposed to the
moist are -bearing Atlantic breezes are clothed with coni-
fers and other forest growths up to an altitude of 11,500
or perhaps even 12,000 feet. So numerous are the
indigenous useful species both in the montana, as these
wooded uplands are called, and almost everywhere in the
Amazonian and the other great fluvial basins, that since
the discovery Europe has derived more alimentary,
medicinal, and other economic plants from South America
than from any other quarter of the globe. Such are the
potato with its cousin the tomato, tobacco, maize, yams,
Brazil nuts, ground-nuts, guava, the pine-apple, rubber,
ipecacuanha, sarsaparilla, cacao, coca, chinchona, ^ and
several cabinet-woods.
In the Brazilian uplands the tropical flora ranges
southwards to the Santos district of the province of Sao
Paulo beyond Capricorn. Here " trees and shrubs in
wonderful variety contend for the mastery, and maintain
a precarious struggle for existence with a crowd of
climbea's and parasites. So dense is the mass of vegeta-
tion that it is impossible to penetrate in any direction
farther than a few yards, and there is no choice but to
follow the track that leads to the summit of the slope." "
A general survey of the South American flora reveals
^ The very best species of this quinine-yielding plant have only lately
been discovered in the forests about the sources of the Inamliari, an
affluent of the Madre de Dios draining the Peruvian province of Caravaya
(Sir CI. Markhara, Geogr. Jour. (Feb. 1896), p. 188).
- Ball, p. 307.
PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL RELATIONS
23
an exceptional number of indigenous types, especially
of flowering plants. Some of these may, no doubt, have
originated in the Cordilleras : but the chief area of birth
and dispersion would appear to have been the older
CHIXCHO:SA.
Brazilian highlands, at a time when they enjoyed a
climate suitable for such developments. " At a period
when physical conditions in the lower regions of the
earth's surface were widely different, and the proportion
of carbonic acid gas present in the atmosphere was very
much greater than it has been since the deposition of the
24
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVKL
coal-measures, it was only in the liigher regions of great
mountain countries that conditions prevailed at all
similar to tliose now existing." Hence, " if the early
types of flowering jJants were confined to the high moun-
tains, we could not expect to find their remains in deposits
formed in shallow lakes and estuaries, until after the
probably long period during which they were gradually
modified to adapt them to altered physical conditions."
It is therefore on the ancient Brazilian uplands that we
should look for " the ancestors of the many forms of vege-
tation which have stamped their character on the vegetation
of the continent" (ih. p. 318).
PHYSICAL AND BIOLOr.ICAL DELATIONS
25
Fauna
Xo more striking illustration of Buckle's broad infer-
ence could be afforded than the remarkable fact that,
from the re«;ion wliich has enriched civilisation with
'OTf
^■:.
so many valuable economic plants, the Old World has
obtained not a single useful animal. The aborigines
themselves had domesticated the llama (which, like its
Asiatic congener, was endowed with a somewhat morbid
temperament, I'endering it useless for the rough work of
26 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
cultured peoples in other lands), and the alpaca, guinea-
pig, and alco, all, however, confined to the limits of the
Peruvian empire. There are many indigenous forms,
some, like the tapir, peccari, jaguar, spectacled bear,
puma, cayman, rhea (" ostrich "), and several of the lower
anthropoid apes, allied to the corresponding genera or
orders in the eastern hemisphere, and often presenting
much interest to naturalists. But all these and the many
other native species — sloth, vampire, ant-eater, agouti,
tree-porcupine, viscacha, anaconda, toucan, humming.-bird,
and others — are of little or no economic use.
The South American Neogseic Eealm
In Prof. Lydekker's scheme of the geograpical dis-
tribution of mammals, South America, with the West
Indies and the central peninsulas and isthmuses as far
north as South Mexico, constitutes the " Xeogteic Eealm,"
that is to say, the zoological zone which is most character-
istic of the New World and has least in common with
the Old.^ The reference, of course, is not to post-Columbian
times, during which the region has been peopled by
multitudes of such useful animals as the horse, ox, sheep
and pig, but to the lowest Miocene age, when Soutli
America was an area of evolution and dispersion for many
generalised ^ animal as well as vegetable forms.
At that time the South American fauna differed far
more than it does at present from that of the rest of the
' A Geographical History of Mammals, Cambridge, 1896.
'^ By a generalised type or form, to which is opposed specialised, is under-
stood, in biological language, an organism of lower or less complicate
structure from which spring liigher organisms in diverging lines of develop-
ment. Thus from a common simian ancestor of relatively simple
structure are derived the higher man-like apes by slow processes of
specialisation extended over long periods of time.
PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL RELATIONS 27
world. This may be accounted for by its isolation from
the northern continent before the completion of the land-
connection at the isthmus of Panama in the late Miocene
epoch. In any case it is placed beyond doubt by the
extraordinary profusion of peculiar mammalian and other
animal remains of the Pleistocene, if not even of the
Pliocene tertiary epoch, found in various districts, especially
of South Brazil and Argentina. Such sites as the Lagoa
Santa caves of Minas Geraes, the so-called " Pampean beds "
of the Pampas, and the vast shell-mounds (" kitchen-
middens ") of the seaboard north and south of the Plate
estuary, have yielded great quantites of the bones of such
gigantic creatures as the mastodon, the .ground-sloth,
mylodon, and many others, often in the closest association
with those of early man himself, thus showing that these
monsters had survived down to comparatively recent
(Pleistocene) times. ' What has become of them ? What
has become of the extensive forest growth in which some
of them found congenial homes, and which at that time
covered large tracts of the now treeless Pampas plains ?
" During the whole time that the alluvial deposits of the
Parana and Paraguay rivers were being laid down, and
well on into the human period, the mammalian fauna of
the Pampean epoch continued to flourish, until there came
a complete sweep of all the larger forms, clearing oft' the
whole of the ground-sloths, glyptodonts, mastodons, toxo-
donts, horses, sabre-toothed tigers, and the larger members
of the camel tribe, and in the Argentine leaving only
armadillos, guanacos, a few deer, a number of rodents,
various cats and foxes, as well as skunks, to represent the
vast assemblage of strange and giant creatures that once
roamed over its plains. Still more remarkable is the
former abundance of gigantic ant-eaters, dependent on
forests for their existence, in the tracts now occupied by
28
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
the coast deserts of Tarapaca. It is practically certain
that the clean sweep of the forests of Argentina and the
larger mammals of the whole of South America is not
due to the hand of man.
The problem is further complicated by the circumstance
that the fossil remains of nearly all the larger animals
AllMADlLLO.
which formerly inhabited the Pampas are also found in
the caverns of Brazil, where the climate is now, and
probably always has been, tropical. Up to the present it
is, accordingly, impossible to account satisfactorily for the
disappearance of all the larger forms from among the
mammalian fauna of South America." ^ May the ultimate
1 Lydekker, p. 121.
PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL RELATIONS 29
solution be found in Colonel Church's restored Pampean
Sea, taken in connection with the gradual wearing down
of the Brazilian Alps and the consequent change of climate,
making the enviroimientj as indicated by Buckle, no
longer favourable for the existence of large animal forms ?
CHATTEE II
EARLY ETHICAL RELATIONS
Inhabitants of South America — Primitive man in South America of two
Types — Physical Characters of the Aborigines — Their Polysynthetic
Sjjeech — Number and Distribution of tlie South-American Languages
— The Lingoa Geral — Table of the South-American Stock Races and
Languages — General Culture — Contrasts between North and South
— Iso-cultural Zones — The Cultureless Zone — The civilised Zone.
Inhabitants of South America
But from the cataclysm, if such it was, which swept away
the old Pampeau fauna, mau survived. That he had
spread in early Pleistocene times from his eastern cradle
to the New World by probably two routes — from Europe
by the still persisting land-connection with Greenland
and Labrador, and from Asia by the narrow Bering
Strait — has been placed beyond reasonable doubt by the
discovery of his works and even of his remains in many
parts of the western hemisphere. These fossil remains,
representing both of the two primordial types, which may
be called the long-headed Afro-European ^ and the round-
headed Asiatic, are, strange to say, found in far greater
alrandance in the southern than in the northern division.
^ In this compound expression the first term has no reference to the
African Negro, but to the African Haniite of C'aucasic type, wlio passed
with the Pleistocene fauna into South and West Europe, and tiieuce pre-
sumably to the New World.
EARLY ETHICAL RELATIONS 31
In fact North America has nothing to show of early man
himself apart from his handiwork, except the still some-
what doubtful round-headed " Calaveras skull " from the
gold-bearing Californian drift ; whereas numerous crania
and even skeletons of both types have been found widely
distributed between the numerous paraderos, or ancient
settlements of the Pampas beds in Argentina, the Lagua
Santa caves, and the samhaqui or shell-mounds strewn
along the coast from Santa Catherina in Brazil to and
beyond the Plate estuary. A skull of round shape was
found by Eoth under the carapace of a huge glyptodon
near Pontimelo, and another by Lund in the Lagoa Santa
district, where, however, the long-heads greatly pre-
dominated, as they did also in the paraderos, in the shell-
heaps on l)oth sides of the Plate estuary, and as far north
as Santarem and Marajo Island in the Amazon estuary.
Few fossil remains of early man have yet been
brought to light in Patagonia, and none in Fuegia. But
his presence in both regions is attested by the numerous
stone implements found deeply embedded in the banks
of the liio Negro, and in the very old shell-mounds of
vast size occurring in several parts of the Puegian Archi-
pelago. One of these rivals if it does not exceed those
of the Brazilian and Buenos Ayres seaboard in age and
extent. Lovisato describes it as still nearly a mile
long, although greatly eroded by the waves, and rising 24
feet above the present sea-level, while the shells of whicli
it mostly consists are much larger than the correspondin'4
species now inhabiting the surrounding waters.
Primitive Man in South America of two Types
From these and many other data, which need not
here be further specified, the inference seems inevitable
32 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
that South America was already iii Pleistocene times
peopled to its utmost limits by the two primitive races
that still persist in the same region. The long-heads
are believed to have been the first arrivals, and their
subsequent migrations from the early settlements in South
Brazil and Argentina have been followed in all directions,
north to Guiana, east to the Sao Francisco and to the
Botocudos of the Aimores Coast Eange, west to Santa
and even to Ancon on the shores of the Pacific, south to
the long-headed Onas and Yahgans of Fuegia.
Later came the round-heads, keeping generally to the
Pacific side, and in pre-Columbian times developing
several centres of culture, such as those of the Muyscas
(Chibchas), Yuncas (Chimus), Quichuas (Peruvians),
Aymaras or Collas (Bolivians), along the line of Andean
plateaux from the Cundinamarca district in Colombia to
Chile. With these might be grouped the ruder but more
vigorous Chilean Aucas (Araucas, Araucanians), who
spread eastwards to the Colorado and Negro rivers, where
they were till lately represented by the round-headed
Puelches, not to be confounded with the more primitive
long-headed Tehuelches or Chuelches. The former were
the Pampas Indians, the latter the Patagonians of the
early writers, but both are now either extinct or swept
into reservations.
With the arrival of the round-heads, probably before
the close of the Pleistocene age, what may be called
the first settlement of the land was completed. After
that, till the advent of the Avhite man, no serious contri-
butions could have been drawn from any quarter, the
long narrow isthmian links between north and south
preventing invasions in numbers sufficiently large to
overcome the resistance of those already in possession of
the rugged Colombian uplands. From this rapid survey
EAKLY ETHICAL EELATIONS 33
we may therefore conclude that the constituent elements
of the true aborigines were twofold — long-heads of un-
known origin and short-headed Asiatic Mongoloids, the
former mainly in the east, the latter mainly in the west.
Before the subsidence of the great inland sea the two
groups must have kept somewhat apart, each advancing
or lagging behind in the general onward movement of
human development, in conformity with the more or less
favourable character of their respective environments.
But after the disappearance of the intervening waters,
impassable by populations whose knowledge of navigation
never at any time advanced beyond the rudimentary
state, contacts hostile or friendly become more frequent,
and free intercommunications established especially along
the transverse line of the low water-parting, as above in-
dicated by Colonel Church.
Physical Characters of the Aborigines
Thus were gradually softened or even blurred the at
first sharply contrasted Mongolic and Caucasic features,
so that we have now rather a general Mongolo-Caucasic
type, which may rightly be called American. It is a
Ijlend of scarcely yet specialised European and Asiatic
characters, further modified in a new environment, just
as these were themselves developed from a generalised
Pleistocene ancestor in their respective environments.
So true is this thfit the latest and best observers, such as
Dr. Ehrenreich ^ and his associates, declare that these
aborigines are a product of the soil, like all other long-
isolated organisms, and are no more Mongols than they
are Caucasians.
^ See especially this traveller's masterly treatise on The Aborigines of
Brazil, Brunswick, 1897.
VOL. 1 D
34 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TPtAVEL
They even go further, and assert that the South
Americans approximate on the whole nearer to the
Caucasic than to the Asiatic, so that we have travelled
far from the days when ethnologists thought they had
settled matters by writing off the inhabitants of the New
World as " a branch of the Mongol stock." From the
Caucasic they have inherited a tall stature, fairly sym-
metrical frames, round straight eyes, large, straight or
aquiline nose, and, as should be expected, all these
traits are most conspicuous on the east side. To the
Mongol they are indebted for their long, lank, black hair,
large though not very prominent cheek-bones, and a
yellowish-brown complexion, which often shades off to a
lightish brown or a coppery tinge, with little trace of
yellow or of the " red " hue popularly attributed to them.
To the Mongol may also be in some measure due that
sullen, or at least, reserved, and outwardly impassive
temperament, wliich is so highly characteristic of those
aborigines, and is at the same time so strongly illustrated
in their peculiarly heavy and massive speech.
Their Polysynthetic Speech
But this speech is entirely their own, so much so
that not even its germs can any longer be traced to the
Old AVorld. The American differs from all other linguistic
groups not merely in its vocabulary and grammatical
structure, but in its very morphology, so that it must be
classed, like plant or animal forms, in an order ajjart
from all others. The germs, no doubt, were brought
with their Pleistocene ancestors from the eastern hemi-
sphere, but in the process of evolution in their new homes
have been obliterated past recovery.
This very evolution itself has resulted in the new
EAHLY ETHICAL EELATIONS 35
" Order," which takes the name of 'poly synthesis, to indi-
cate its most striking feature, that is, a tendency to
extreme synthesis or composition, in virtue of which all
the words of the sentence may be merged in a single term
often of prodigious length. Such massive expression of
heavy thought is effected partly by syncope, that is, by
clipping and cutting down the several words themselves,
by which, for instance, regn-boga is reduced through r6n-
hoga to rainbow ; but mainly by embodying the relational
elements, attributes and even the nominal object in the
verbal root, so that it becomes impossible to say " I
strike," but synthetically " I-man-strike-dog " (or some
other object) repeatedly (or in some other way), etc., all
in a breath. Now this strange mode of thought and
expression, which is absolutely unknown elsewhere,
prevails, with a few trifling and explicable exceptions,
throughout the whole continent from Alaska to Fuegia,
as may be seen by two such examples as the Eskimo
igdlorssualiortugssarsiumavq and the Hipurina (Amazonian)
Nicugacaigaturumatinii. Here culture-stages make not
the slightest difference, and the cultivated Aztec and
Quichuan are cast in precisely the same mould as the rude
Tarascan or Patasonian.
Number and Distribution of the South- American Languages
Another point to be noticed is the extraordinary
number of stock languages, which are variously estimated
for the whole continent at from 100 to 200 or more,
for nobody exactly knows, and of these perhaps one half
may be assigned to South America. By stocks are to
be understood linguistic groups which have nothing in
common beyond their general poly synthetic character,
and are as irreducible to a single mother- tongue as are, for
36 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AJSTD TRAVEL
instance, the Semitic and Aryan groups in the Old World.
In the whole of Europe there are only two such stocks,
— Aryan and Basque, Finno-Turki being a comparatively
recent intruder. How then are perhaps fifty times more
current amongst an indigenous population thirty or forty
times less ? It is a wonderful phenomenon, as inexplic-
able as is the total disappearance of the Pleistocene fauna
and flora.
Attention should here be called to the extremely
irregular distribution of these linguistic groups, which, as
in North America, are mostly crowded together in small
spaces on the west side of the continent, where one alone
— Quichua-Aymara — ranges over a wide domain, not
however, conterminous, as is often assumed, with that of
the old Peruvian empire. In the central and eastern
regions there are several such linguistic families, notably
the Carib, Arawak, and especially Tupi-Guarani, which
are spread over vast areas, and the hmits of which have
even been enlarged by recent exploration. Thus the
Carib, hitherto supposed to have originated either in
Guiana or the Antilles, if not even on the North-
American mainland, spreading thence southwards a little
beyond the Orinoco basin, is now shown to have had its
cradle about the head-waters of the Xingu and other
southern affluents of the Amazon in the very heart of
the continent, whence the migratory movements were
directed northwards to the West Indies if not even to
Florida, before that peninsula was occupied by the
Seminoles.
The Lingoa Geral
Owing to other causes, of a social and political rather
than of an ethnical nature, a still wider expansion has
been given, not to the Tupi-Guarani race, but to the
EARLY ETHICAL RELATIONS 37
Tupi-Guarani language, which has become the so-called
lingoa gcral} that is, the " general language," the lingua
franca, or common medium of intercourse, not only
amongst the natives but even amongst some of the
mixed European populations throughout half the continent.
With the development of missionary enterprise the
Jesuits, who from the first took a foremost part in this
work, soon discovered that their operations were greatly
hampered by the multiplicity of local dialects, to which
the neophites clung with great tenacity. To force upon
them their own Spanish or Portuguese tongue was found
to be impossible, so that the only alternative was
the adoption of some native form of speech, the
genius of which would be better suited to their mental
capacity.
For the Andean plateau regions the Quichuan of the
Peruvian empire was naturally selected, and for the rest
of the continent the still more widespread Guarani-Tupi,
whose numerous branches ramified over a great part of
the Amazon and Upper Parana basins, and were also
current amongst the numerous Tupi tribes of the
Brazilian seaboard. Preference was eventually given to
one of these Tupi forms, which was accordingly introduced
into all the stations throughout the Portuguese and
many of the Spanish possessions, especially about the
Parana-Paraguay confluence. All the natives resorting
to the Missions were required to learn this " common
speech," which was also taught in the schools, employed
in the pulpit, and used for general administrative
purposes.
This policy was attended by permanent and far-reaching
^ This Portuguese form has taken precedence of the Spanisli Icngaa
general, because the Brazilian lingua franca has obtained far greater cur-
rency than that adopted for the Andean regions.
38
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
results. Having once realised the advantage of such
a general medium of intercourse, the natives continued to
avail themselves of it even after the expulsion of the
Jesuits and the suppression of the missions, and although
afterwards many of the tribes relapsed into paganism
and the savage state. Thus it has come about that the
dialect of an obscure coast tribe, slightly modified and
reduced to written form by European missionaries, has
become widely diffused throughout Brazil, Paraguay,
Corrientes, and some other parts of Argentina. It
appears to be still spreading amongst the aborigines, and,
like Quichuan in Pervi and Maya in Yucatan, is even
current amongst some of the mixed European communities
themselves.
In the subjoined table all the chief South American
peoples are grouped as far as possible according to their
respective stock languages, which, in the midst of so
much physical uniformity, are found to be the most
convenient if not the only means of classification. It
should be noted that although many are stated to be
" extinct," this does not necessarily mean extirpation, but
often nothing more than disappearance, by absorption in
the politically or socially dominant people.
SOUTH AMERICAN STOCK RACES AND LANGUAGES
Stocks.
Main Divisions.
Domain.
\
Nutihara, Tataba, Chmcd, "\
Tuneho j
Cauca Valley.
Chibcha
"\
Paucura, Petacay, Timha, ^
Head-waters of R. Mag-
Pastu j
dalena.
Choco
Baudo, Tado, Noanama, Citarae .
Rs. Atrato and San Juan.
Paeze .
Colima, Manipo, Naura
Upper Magdalena.
COCONUCO
{
Barbacoa, Cayapa, Cuaiquerre, \
Mocao j
Colombia-Ecuador frontiers
EAKLY ETHICAL RELATIONS
39
Stocks.
QuiTU
Chinchasuyu^
Inca
Aymara
(collasuyu) 1
" Yunca"
Chango
HUANCA
Main Divisions.
Cayambe, Puritacxi,, Cvllahuasa,
Linguachi, CataJballu
Cara .....
Carangue . . . . .
Llacta-cunca, Amhatu, Mucha,^
Puruhu, TiquisamM, Saroi,
Caf>ari, Palta {near Loja),
Zaizu [about Zaruma) ^
H'uancacilca . . . ■■
Manta . . . . ,
Tacami . . . - .
Ayahuaca (Cassa and Callua)
Huancapampa
Huacrachucv
Chacha [OJiacluqmya)
Cajamarca .
Huamadiucu
Conchucu
Huanucu
Huanca
Hucana, Sora
ChoMca
Inca .
Quichua
Cana, Canche
Colla .
Lupaca
Pacasa
Carangua, Quillaca
Uru {of Puquina speech)
Galchaqxii {of Quichua speech
Aiacameno (1) .
Chiviu, Lambayaque [both of Mo-
ckica speech)
Pre- Inca race {now of Quichva
speech)
Nortli of Quito.
Coast, Charapcato to Cape
S. FraucisfO.
Bordering on tlie Pastus.
South of Quito.
I. of Pana aud coast to Pta.
Sta. Elena.
Coast N. of Huancavilcas.
Coast at Atacames.
N. to borders of Quitu Do-
main.
Near Jaen de Bracanioras.
Both sides of Maranon gorges
Mountains on right banlv
Maranon.
Cajamarca Valley.
Lower down on the Maranon.
Maranon and head-waters
of coast streams.
Head- waters of R. Huallaga.
Jauja and Torma Valleys.
In the Coast Cordillera.
From Gnauta to the R.
Apurimac.
Cuzco and Vilcamayu Valley.
Rs. Apurimac and Pacha-
choca.
Head-waters R. Vilcamayu.
N. of L. Titicaca.
W. side L. Titicaca.
E. side L. Titicaca.
S. side L. Titicaca.
S.-W. corner L. Titicaca.
Prov. Tucuman and south-
ern parts of Gran Chaco.
Atacama district.
Prov. Trujillo.
Tarapaca.
Peruvian Coast i'rom Par-
niunca to Acari (9°-14°S.)
40
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
Main Divisions.
Antisutu
Jevkro
(JiVARO)
Zapauo
Betoye
Pano
TiCUNA, Ta- j
CUNA, OB -
JOMANA
JURI
Tacana
Lego . . ^
(Mosetene) j
PaRus
Groups.
M
Mojos I
Groups, "i
Barre
Anti or Campa
Chunclw : —
Huachipayri, Tuyuneri, Sirin- \
eyri j
Caranga, Suchimani .
Aguaruna, Antipao, HuavMsa,
Ibanoma, Iquito, Cotopasa,
Pindo, Paute
A huishiri, A ndoa, Curaraye, "
Matagene, Mauta, Nugamu,
Nushinu, Rotuno, Shiripuno,
Sinchictu, Supinu, Tiputini,
Yasuni
Pioje, Ocoguage .
Ele, Situja
Tama, Acanejo .
Aniaguage, Correguagc, Cence-
guage, Zeona
Uav.pe, Tucano .
A guana, Cholone, Motilone,
Jibito, Ajuana
Amcjuara, Pirro, Capanahua,
Cashibo, C'onibo, Remo, Setebo,
Shipibo, Send
Caruana, Jajunuma, Javiolapa,
Picuama, Jocacurama, Mali-
numa, Lamarama, Varauama,
Urizsama
Juri-coma, Oacao, Moira,'\
Assai, Curassi, Oira A pi, \ ■■
Tucano, Ubi, Uebytu, Ta- |
boca ) :
Araona, Equari, Maropa, Tumii-
pasa, Maracani, Tm-omona,
Pucopacari
Guarayo, Siriona, Jacare ■
CanaviaH, Catacaji, Aqxiiri,^
Gutuquira, Hipurina, Jama- \
mart, Maneteneri, Pammary, j
Puru-Puru J
Baur^, Movimo, Erinima, Tapa-'\
cur a, Ronama,Caniciana, Sapi, |
Bolepa, Tiboi, Rotoronno, Pe- j
chicyo, Mure, Cayababa J
Tapacuraca, Napaca, Paunaca, \
Paiconeca, Quitemoca, Man- .
caca, Zuracarijuia I
Upper Ucayali and its
affluents.
Forests E. of Cuzco.
Prov. Caravaya, E. of Tur-
ina in Peru.
Between Rs. GhincMpe and
Pastasa ; and both sides
R. Maraiiou.
R. Napo basin, and thence
to the R. Pastasa ; about
12,000 sq. miles.
Rs. Napo and Putuniayo.
R. Casanare.
Rs. Yari and Cagua.
lis. Gaqueta and Rutumayo
R. Uaupe.
R. Huallaga.
R. Ucayali.
Rs. Putiimayo and Maranoi
about Tabatinga.
R. Amazon, between Rs.
Putuniayo ad Japura and
Rio Negro.
Upper Madre de Dios Basin.
Tipuani affluent of R. Beni.
Rio Purus.
Rs. Maniore and Bfiii.
Rs. Cassiquiare, JIaraina
and Upper Negro.
EARLY ETHICAL RELATIONS
41
Stocks.
Main Divisions.
DOMAIX.
CURETU .
Isanna(?) Uaenambu{?)
Bet. R.S. Japura and Uaupe.
Cababuyana -
Caraguana, Pocoana, Moacarana, \
Yaribaru, Mariguyana, Taru- \
caguaca J
Atoi-ai, Wapisiana, Amaripa
R. Japura below Basururu
confluence.
British C4uiana.
Alaypure, Baniva
R. Orinoco.
Yuana, Marawa, .
\l. Amazon.
Arawak . -
Goajiro {?), Cocina (?)
(xoajira Peninsula.
Vaura, Mahinacu
Upper Xingu.
Parexi, Cahsi
Upper Tapajos.
Kwana, Layana .
Upper Paraguay.
A rawan
Marajos Is.
Bakairi, Nahuquu
Upper Xingu.
Pamella
Lower Guapore.
Apiaca {Apeiaca)
Lower Tocantins.
Apoto, Wayawai .
Brazilian Guiana.
Caeie . . ■
Galibi, Rucuyenne
French „
Galina
Dutch
Akawai, Arecuna, Macusi, Para-
mona
1 British
Makirifare, Mayongeong
Venezuelan ,,
Uitoto, Coreguaji, Carijina .
Upper Yapura.
^
Qalib {Carib) ....
Is. St. Vincent, Honduras.
Warrau
Guarauno
Coast between Rs. Orinoco
and Corentjnis.
Tupinainia, Tanuyo .
Lower Amazon, E. Para.
Tupajaro, Temba.
R. Para.
Jacunda, Pacaia, Tecuna-Pena .
Lower Xingu.
Aneto, Manitsawa, Camay ura
Upper Xingu.
JEmerillun, Ovampi
French Guiana.
Goajire, Tocantins
R. Tocantins.
Oiuagua, Cocdma
Lr. Huallaga and Maraiion.
Tupi .
Petiguare .....
R. Parahiba.
Cahete
R. Sao Francisco.
Tupininquin ....
Prov. Espirito Santo.
Tapiguae . . . . '
Coast from Pernambuco to
St. Paulo.
Tupinambaze . . . [
Provs. Bahia, Sergipe, and
Pernambuco.
Tummimivi, Tamoiae .
Rio de Janeiro.
f
Mundrucu ....
R. Tapajos and right bank
Amazon.
Mauhe: Tatu, Tasiuha, Guari-'\
Between Rs. Tapajos and
ba, Inamba, Caribwna /
Amazon.
Guarani . <
Chiriguano, Siriono . . [
Gran Chaco and S.E. Bo-
livian frontiers.
Guarani proper . . . [
Paraguay, Entre-Rios, Mis-
iones.
Guarayi .....
Now in Mojos Missions.
V
Diaguite .....
Prov. Tucumau.
1
42
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Main Divisions.
Chiquito ( I
Group 1 I
BORORO .
f\
I Ges .
(Tapuya)
Payagtja
Charrua
Abipone or/
Callagae \^
LULE . . i
Mataguayo \
(Mataco) J
MOCOBI
TOBA
C'HURUMATA \
AND CHICHAS -
Orejones J
Guaycuru
Araucano . <
PUELCHE \
(Gknnaken) J
Tehuelche
Yahgan and )
Alacaluf J
Tapacuraca, Napaca, Paunaca,
Paiconeca, Quitemoca, Mon-
coca, Ziiracanguia
Yaraye
Botocudo {BuTung)
Camacan, Patacho, Massaco.
Gayapo {North) .
Cayapo ( West), or Suyo
Cayapo [South) .
Akua {Cherente, Chavante)
Caraya, Aruma .
Apiacare
Payagua proper .
Chacamoco, Angaite, Sancqxma
Cadjuevo . . ■ .
Minuane, Cruenoa
Naquegtgaguehee, Rucahee, Ja-
coniaga,
Lule proper, Vilela : Ontoampa,
Yeconoampa, Ipa, Paiaine
Pitilaga
f
\
Moluche, Picunche, Puencke, \
Peye, Keye J
Ranqualche {Ranquele), Querandi
Calilehet, Culinan, Yacana, Ona
Between Rs. Mamore and
Itenez.
Matto Grosso, Goyaz.
Aj'inores Mts. and R. Doce.
E. Brazil.
E. Brazilian Forests.
R,s. Araguaya, Xingu and
Tocantins.
Upper Xingu.
Parana head-waters.
R. Tocantins.
R.. Xingu.
R. Tapajos.
Both sides R. Paraguay
about Asuncion.
Right bank R. Paraguay
in Gran Chaco.
Left bank Paraguay, Brazilo
Paraguay frontier.
Rs. Parana and Uruguay.
Rs. Bermejo and Rio
Grande, Gran Chaco.
Gran Chaco.
R. Bermejo, Gran Chaco.
Gran Chaco.
Rs. Pilcoraayo and Bermejo.
Gran Chaco between the
Chiiiguaiias and Guay-
curus.
Between Rs. Pilconiayo and
Yaveviri, Grau Chaco.
Chilian Andes, Coast and
Islands.
Pampas, S. to R. Negro.
Patagonia, E. Fuegia.
Central and W. Fuegia.
General Culture — Contrasts between North and South
A closer study of these multifarious populations
reveals the strikins; fact that all the cultured or semi-
To fcux pwie 4Z.
E THIsr OX. O GI C AI.
and
PHIL.OLOGICAX, MAP
or
SOUTH AMERICA
,Slxo"wiii^ tke General DxstmbTUicMr of tli.e
INOICENOUS RACES
■^'/^ Anl tke Positio^n. of the vaxions
LinCUISTIC FAMILIES
Names of Stocks - ARAWAK
^ ^ Aii-<fi»xsioni"Maypure
London , Eiward Stanford, 12, 13 &- 14r. Long Acxe. W. C .
EARLY ETHICAL KELATIONS 43
cultured peoples have from all known time been confined
to the comparatively narrow western uplands between
Colombia and Chile, while at the discovery the rest of
the continent was, and in some measure still is, a seething
mass of utter savagery. In most other regions the bulk
of the inhabitants stand on or about the same plane of
general progress, or at least the transitions are gradual
from the lower to the higher states. Such is especially
the case in North America, where under more favourable
climatic relations the natives, taken as a whole, had
advanced considerably beyond those of the south. Here
the ruder tribes have nothing to show comparable to the
mounds of various types scattered, in some places pro-
fusely, over the Mississippi valley and the Appalachian
lands. The Iroquois, Algonquins and others, supposed
to be purely hunting or predatory tribes, had brought
considerable tracts under cultivation in pre-Columbian
times, and the passage is almost imperceptible from the
mound-builders to the more settled Natchez, Seminole,
and other groups in the south-east, and again to the still
higher Pueblo communities in the extreme south-west
(Arizona, New Mexico).
Iso-Cultural Zones
But in South America there are no transitions, or only
such as in later times had been developed to a limited
extent with the eastward expansion of the Incas' political
sway down the slopes of the Cordillera, without anywhere
quite reaching the lowlands. In fact it w^ould almost
seem as if the policy of the Incas w^as rather to defend
the approaches to their upland citadels from the attacks
of the ferocious Chunchos, and other savage denizens of the
forests watered by the Amazonian head-streams, than to
44 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TRAVEL
extend the bounds of the empire in that direction. Yet
several military expeditions were sent eastwards, and
large tracts of the Montana conquered and permanently
incorporated in the empire. At the same time all the
slopes by which Cuzco and the other eastern districts
might be reached from the Upper Ucayali (Yucay,
Urubamba) were guarded by formidable works planned
and executed with remarkable engineering skill. The
Yucay valley was defended by the extensive fortifica-
tions of Pisac, where every height was crowned with
towers, every inequality in the rocks or other vantage
ground filled in and faced with smooth slabs impossible
to scale, every strategic point occupied by defensive works
scarcely surpassed by ancient or modern military science.
A line traced from a little east of Bogota along the
windings of the Andean plateaux to about 30° S. and
then deflected down the Maule valley to the coast, that
is, along the southern limit of the Peruvian empire, will
mark ofi" with sufficient precision the cultural and savage
or barbaric zones to the right and left, and will at the
same time show how immeasurably the latter exceeded
the former in extent. The Incas' capital, Cuzco, within
280 miles of the Pacific, stood close to this parting-line,
so that, in a day's journey down the head-waters of the
Ucayali, you passed abruptly from a land of orderly
government, with well-developed political and social in-
stitutions, to a region bounded eastwards only by the
Atlantic, where not a single community could be met
which had advanced beyond the fully organised tribal
state.
Of all these countless fractions of humanity the Aucas,
just south of the Maule frontier, were amongst the most
advanced. Yet they had neither properly constituted
tribal groups nor hereditary chiefs, nor even patriarchal
EAELY ETHICAL RELATIONS 45
jurisdiction. No man recognised the authority of any-
body ; the father scarcely ventured to exercise his
natural influence within the narrow family circle ; there
were no serfs or slaves, no social distinctions of any kind.
If the nation, for such nevertheless it was, held together,
and if the ethical standard was high, it was due partly
to the love of freedom, by which every heart was inspired
to resist the disciplined pressure of the craven Peruvian
hosts from the north, and partly to the salutary belief
that their conduct was observed by the vigilant eye of
their forefathers dwelling in the stars set in the blue
skies above their land.
The Cultureless Zone
But beyond the narrow confines of these " Iroquois of
the South," as they have been somewhat inaptly called,
much of the land was wrapped in darkness and deso-
lation, homo Jioviini lupus — man a wolf to his fellow-
man — while head-hunting, cannibalism in exceedingly
repulsive forms, brutal treatment of the women and
children, prevailed to some extent both amongst the
Amazonian and the Brazilian aborigines.
It is, however, right to say that, although for the
most part living in a state of nature, many of the
Amazonian natives were, and still are, amongst the
noblest and most intelligent of all wild tribes. Hence
the accounts given by some observers of extremely rude
and savage customs must be taken as referring only to
exceptionally debased groups, such as the Macus of the
Eio Negro. These, we are told, have neither clothes
nor houses, but only a few leaves stitched together as a
shelter against the rain, yet have discovered a most
deadly kind of poison for the arrowheads with which
46 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
they attack other natives and kill everybody in the
captured villages. The Aniajuacas of the Ucayali, near
the old Peruvian frontier, have been over and again
converted to (,'hristianity, each time relapsing and
murdering the evangelists. Even the Antis, who roam
the woods near Cuzco, are described as fierce, cruel
and untamable savages, if not cannibals. Yet they
were closely associated with the Quichuas, and gave their
name both to the Andes and to Anti-swiju, the eastern
division of the empire. The Cashibos, also, of the
Ucayali, eat their aged parents, we are asked to believe,
more from religious sentiment than from cruelty. But
religion has nothing to do with their habit of imitat-
ing the cry of game to decoy and, as is said, devour,
hunters in the woods. Before their conversion it was
the practice of the Cocomas of the Huallaga, but now
removed to the Ucayali, to eat their dead relatives, and
swallow the ground bones in fermented drinks, on the
plea that it was better to be inside a warm friend than
buried in the cold earth.
Worse things are related of the Tupinambas ; the
Tapuyas (" savages ") ; the Botocudos, who hack their
refractory wives with sharp shells ; and of some other
extinct or still surviving natives of the Brazilian sea-
board ; of the Fuegians before the establishment of the
English missions in their midst ; and of others in
Ecuador, Colombia, and the Orinoco basin.
Of monuments, in any intelligible sense of the term,
there can be no question. The whole of this savage
zone, over five million square miles in extent, and oc-
cupied by man since Pleistocene times, has nothing to
remind us of the presence of man except some rude and
infantile carvings, described by some enthusiasts as '" rock
inscriptions," met especially in the Guianas, Argentina,
EARLY ETHICAL RELATIONS 47
and Brazil, and the so-called piedras pintadas, "painted
rocks," which have a much wider range, occurring
also in Argentina and in Chile. All are interesting,
because of the resemblances and analogies they every-
where present both to each other, and also to similar
tracings and sculptures in Arizona, New Mexico, and
other parts of North America. When we consider that
most of them fall far below the artistic skill of the
African bushmen, and of the men of the first Stone Age
in Europe, the suggestion may well be accepted that they
were executed by some of the early immigrants from the
north. The taste, or even the capacity to produce such
carvings or paintings, crude as they are, may have after-
wards been lost. At least they do not appear to be any-
where repeated or imitated by the present populations,
who would almost seem to have fallen below the low
standard of culture possessed by those early immigrants
into the southern continent.
Many of these aborigines have not even reached the
old Stone Age, for they cannot fashion a flint to any
useful shape, and use no implements except shells, bones,
thorns, and other materials supplied by nature. Others
have never netted a hammock or launched a canoe,
though dwelling on gently-flowing streams which seem
designed expressly to foster the art of navigation. This
picture of debasement is completed by one of the Chiquito
tribes, who have the unique distinction of possessing
absolutely no numeral system. The Australians and
Papuans can all count at least up to tii:o ; but these
Bolivians, under the shadow of the stupendous Tiahuanaco
monuments on the shores of Titicaca, have never got
beyond zero. The term etdma, said to mean one, really
means "alone," "apart," so that their arithmetic is a
blank.
48 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
The Civilised Zone
Thus while the wooded escarpments of the plateau
continued to be the abode of rude wild tribes at the
lowest rung of the social ladder, the plateau itself,
treeless and bleak though it was, had long been the seat
of a native culture capable of raising colossal monuments,
elsewhere unrivalled for size and exquisite finish except
in Egypt and Baalbec. These astonishing remains will
have again to engage our attention, and here it must
suffice to point out that they lie near the southern
extremity of the cultural zone, beyond which all is
savagery or barbarism. The much-discussed question of
their origin can scarcely be treated apart from that of all
the other pre-Columbian monuments, and other works of
the more or less civilised communities, which stretch from
this point in an unbroken iso-cultural line to the Colombian
uplands. They are associated, going northwards, chiefly
with the Bolivian "Aymaras" (properly Collas) and
the allied Peruvian Quichuas, of whom the Incas were
the dominant tribe, all these occupying the whole of the
Andean plateau as far north as Quito (Ecuador) ; the
nearly extinct Yuncas (Chimtis) of the present Peruvian
province of Trujillo ; the people of Ancon on the same
coast north of Lima, who, if not Quichuas, were at an
early date brought under Quichua influences ; lastly, the
Miiyscas {Chibchas) of the Cundinamarca plateau, Colombia,
who are quite distinct in race, speech, and general culture
from the Peruvians.
Excluding those of Ancon, who cannot in the present
connection be separated from the Quichuas, all these
peoples had, long before the advent of the Conquistadores,
made considerable progress in the arts and industries, as
well as in various social institutions, as is sufficiently
EARLY ETHICAL RELATIONS 49
evident from the fact that they must be spoken of as
nations in the strict sense of the term, and not merely
as a bare aggregate of tribes, like the Mongolo-Tui'ki
hordes of Central Asia fortuitously brought together by
some conquering Khans in vast but evanescent empires.
The empire of the Incas was marlced by great stability,
at least outwardly, and by a complete fusion of the
ethnical and social elements over wide areas, though not
everywhere. The same was, no doubt, true also of the
other political systems, such as those of the Aymaras and
Yuncas, which disappeared, not by internal disintegration,
but by the spread of the Incas' sway over the Cordillera
and Pacific seaboard, while the Muyscas, though torn
by civil strife, held together till overthrown by the
Spaniards.
Moreover, all these civilisations not only differed con-
siderably from the Maya, the Aztec, and others of the
northern continent, but also in many respects from each
other. Characteristic of Chimu were the so-called huacas,
huge sepulchral or other mounds, or truncated pyramids
of a type somewhat analogous to those of Mexico, whereas
the so-called mound of Ak-kapana at Tiahuanaco, which
had been compared with those of Yucatan, is now shown
to be a natural hill formerly crowned with buildings that
have since disappeared. So also the Peruvian temples
and other structures, as well as the great highways,
terraced slopes, irrigation and other works carried out
by the Incas, are of a different order from those of Central
America.
It is further to be noted that the Aztecs, and especially
the Mayas, had made considerable progress in the art of
pictorial writing. Many of their symbols are now believed
even to possess phonetic value, though still falling far
short of a true alphabetic system. But of all tliis
VOL. I E
50 COMPENDIUM OF GEOLiliAI'HY AND TltAVEL
no certain trace ^ has been i'ound in tlie South, where
even the Quichuas had no means of recording events,
whether of an astronomical or an historical order, except
by the so-called quippos or strings, a rude system of
mnemonics still in use in some of the rural districts, the
x^alues of which are determined by the length, colour,
Jvuots, loops, and general arrangement of the strings.
Everywhere navigation was in a rudimentary state,
the most advanced peoples being unacquainted with keeled
vessels, or indeed with any craft beyond canoes and a
kind of float or raft, on which a small sail might be
hoisted in the calm waters of the Pacific coastlands, but
useless for ordinary seafaring purposes. On the other
hand, the land- connections were such as to exclude the
suggestion of any large movements of invading hordes ;
nor were there any traditions or records of such move-
ments among the people on either side of the isthmus of
Panama, which had been reached only by one or two
straggling Aztec groups from Nicaragua. This is one of
the reasons why it is so ditticult to accept the tradition
that the founder of the Lambayeque dynasty in the Chimu
territory came with his followers from the ocean on rafts.
If to all these considerations be added the fact that the
Aztec, Muysca, and Quichua-Aymara idioms were all stock
languages with nothing in common except their general
polysynthetic character, the inference seems irresistible
that the cultured peoples north and south of the Panama
1 Mention is made by Molina (1570-84) and others of pictures in the
Inca country recording events, though none have been preserved. Some
autliorities think the carvings discovered in the Santa Maria Valley,
province Cataraarca, Argentina, constituted a writing .system, even with
[ihonetic characters, of Peruvian origin, but long extinct in the land of
its birth. Yet even so, no support would thereby be lent to Maya -Aztec
theories, for nobody pretends that such " inscri]itions" have anything
in coiinnon with the Central American systems.
EAKLV ETHICAL RELATIONS 51
region had for long ages remained practically isolated
from each other. At least no regular communications
had been established, no intercourse maintained beyond
that of casual travellers or other visitors, which might
suffice perhaps to account for such analogies as may be
detected, for instance, between the Aztec or Peruvian
pictorial art, as displayed in the decoration of the re-
spective fictile vases, textiles or metal work.
It follows that the main features of all these cultural
centres must have been independent local developments,
and this is the conclusion which the latest and most
careful observers have come to respecting the Tiahuanaco
monuments, the most wonderful and original of all.^
They were the work of the Aymara people, in whose
territory they were raised in times prior to the conquest
of the Titicaca basin by the Incas, who were consequently
not the builders of these vast megalithic structures. The
relations of the Incas to the conquered Aymaras will be
dealt with further on.
1 Stiibel and Ulile, Die Ituinenstdtte von Tiahuanaco, etc., Breslaii,
1893, a sumptuous work, wliicli deals exhaustively with the whole subject.
CHAPTEE III
LATER ETHNICAL AND HISTORIC RELATIONS
The Discovery — Exploration of the Seaboard — Inland Expeditions —
Orellana's A'^oyage down the Amazon — Relations of the Whites to
the Aborigines — Miscegenation — Settlement of Brazil — The Negro
Element — Mestizo Terminology — S|)anish and Portuguese Colonial
Administration — The Revolt — The Brazilian Empire and Republic
— The Spanish South-American States.
The Discovery — Exploration of the Seaboard
Somewhere about the year 1380 Chaucer wrote: —
" Him nedeth not his colour for to dien
With Brazil, ne with grain of Portingal."
Some now forgotten mystification has been caused by
this apparently prophetic mention of the chief region of
the southern continent, and in association too with the
name of Portugal, its future master, quite 120 years
before South America was sighted, and 170 years
before any part of it was known by the name of Brazil.
But the explanation is simple. The mention of Portugal
in this connection is merely a curious coincidence, while
the " Brazil " referred to by the poet is not a country
but a dyewood, which was so named from its red flame
colour,^ and was well known to the Portuguese and other
^ Cf. Frencli braise; Eng. brazier; Port, braza ; Ital. brasile, etc., all
from a Teutonic root preserved in the Anglo-Saxon ircesian.
LATER ETHNICAL AND HISTORICAL RELATIONS 53
seafaring nations in the fourteenth century. Soon after
the discovery a similar dye wood was found in abund-
ance on the present Brazilian coastlands, which were
thus named from it, and not the dyewood from the
country.
No part of the southern mainland was reached till
the year 1498, when Columbus visited the Orinoco delta
THE FIRST HOUSE ERECTED ON THE SPANI.SH MAIN, STILL EXISTING
AT CARTAGENA.
and circumnavigated the island of Trinidad, which was
so named by him in honour of the Trinity. He was
followed in 1499 by Peralonso Nifio and Cristobal
Guerra, who coasted the Guiana sealjoard for some dis-
tance \,-estwards, and by Hojeda with his famous pilot
Amerigo Vespucci, who completed the first rough survey
of the low-lying Venezuelan coastlands for 600 miles to
the Goajira Peninsula beyond the Maracaibo inlet. The
54 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
remainder of the northern seaboard was traced in 1500-1
1)}' Bastidas de Sevilla all the way to the Gulf of Darien
or Uraba, while Vicente Pinzon and Diego de Lepe
passing soutli wards reached the Amazon estuary, pene-
trating round the island of Marajo into what they
supposed was a great " fresh-water sea." Pushing still to
the south Pinzon, rounding Cape S. Eoque, easternmost
headland of the continent, penetrated into the southern
waters to Bahia, while Vespucci advanced in 1503 as far
as the little inlet of Cananea, memorable as the starting-
point of the first expedition to the interior, from which
not a soul returned alive. The exploration of the eastern
seaboard was completed as far as the Plate estuary in
1509 by Pinzon and Diaz de Solis. Eeturning in 1515,
Solis made a more thorough survey of this great inlet,
which was known as the Eio de Solis till 1528, when
Sebastian Cabot, at that time in the Spanish service,
findins that the Parana branch led towards the Peruvian
silver mines, renamed it the Eio de la Plata, i.e. the
" Silver Eiver."
By the line drawn by Pope Alexander VI. in 1493,
when he " sliced the world in two like an apple," assign-
incr the western half to Spain and the eastern to Portugal,
the latter power was very nearly excluded altogether from
the southern continent. The line about coincided with
the present meridian of 40° west of Greenwich, which
intersects South America near its easternmost extremity
not far from the S. Eoque headland. But the very next
year the parting line w^as, by the Treaty of Tordesillas,
shifted considerably to the west, so that when this region
was actually discovered the boundary was found by the
Spaniards to run from a little west of the Amazon estuary
southwards, and by the Portuguese to strike the mainland
still farther w^est (60' or 61° W. Gr.), so as to leave the
LAIEK ETHNICAL AND HISTOKICAL EELATIONS 55
wliole of Guiana to the Orinoco delta on their side.
The question never was and never could be settled,
the proposed meridian having to be drawn 370 leagues
west, not of any fixed point, but of an indefinable point
in the Cape A^erdes and Azores, which groups occupy wide
but far from identical areas in the Atlantic.
But in any case a considerable slice of the southern
mainland, however the treaty might be interpreted,
necessarily fell to the share of the Portuguese. Hence
it is all the more surprising that this rich " windfall "
remained unknown to them, and unvisited by their
navigators, till Pedro Alvarez Cabral, bound for the Cape
and the East, was driven by a storm westwards to the
Brazilian seaboard in the year 1500. Supposing the
point where he struck land to be an island, he named it
the Ilha da Santa Gruz^" Holy Eood Island," and gave
the title of Porto Seguro to the haven where he had
found refuge from the storm, and where he hoisted the
Portuguese flag in tlie name of King Emmanuel. The
" Harbour of Safety " still remains, while the imaginary
island with its very name became merged in the vast region
which, for the reason above stated, began about the middle
of the sixteenth century to be known as the land of
brazil-wood, or simply Brazil.
On the Pacific side the survey of the seaboard was
naturally delayed till it became known that here also
there was a seaboard, in others words, that America was
an island, and not a part of the Asiatic mainland, more
particularly of India, as persistently held Ity Columbus to
the last. The delusion was dispelled by two memorable
events — the actual discovery of the Pacific Ocean, first
sighted by Vasco Nunez de Balboa in 1513, and tlu^
opening of the inter-oceanic route by the voyage of
Magellan through the strait named from him in the
56 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
year 1520. Owing to the east- west trend of the isthmus
of Panama, Nunez, crossing from the Caribbean Sea to the
San Miguel inlet of the Gulf of Panama, looked out south -
vjards on the boundless expanse, which he, therefore,
called the " South Sea." Magellan, on the other hand,
gave the name of " Pacific " to what proved to be the
same oceanic basin, because he found himself in tranquil
waters after weathering the stormy Fuegian channel.
Since that time both expressions have been in constant
use, and although Magellan's " Pacific Ocean " prevails
amongst the nations of Eomance and English speech,
Xunez' " South Sea " holds its ground in Teutonic lands.
Even in English the expressions " South Cea Islands " and
" South Sea Islanders " are more in favour when speaking of
the countless Pacific insular groups and their inhabitants.
A beginning was made with the maritime explora-
tion of the Pacific side of the southern continent in 1517,
when Espinosa launched the first sailing vessel in
Panama Bay, although his first trip was made, not south-
wards to Colombia or Peru, but round to the Nicoya inlet
in Costa Pica. All the early voyages of discovery and
conquest started from the Isthmian region, and although
one of the ships detached by stress of weather from
Loaysa's squadron in 1526 actually sailed from Euegia to
Tehuantepec (Mexico), it stood so far out to sea that the
South American coast was not even sighted at any single
point. Four years before this event, Andagoya had crept
down the rugged Colombian seaboard to the mouth of a
little river " Biru," the very position or identity of
which appears to have never been determined. Yet
its name, transformed by the Spaniards to Pent, has
become associated with imperishable memories, and,
by a not uncommon geographical misconception, has
found a permanent " local habitation " as the designation
LATER ETHNICAL AND HISTOKICAL IJELATIONS 57
of one of the great political divisions of the southern
continent. The reports of nourishing empires and
boundless wealth, though not yet of El Dorado (" The
Man of Gold ") himself, brought back by Andagoya,
gave the first impulse to Pizarro's scheme of conquest,
which in fact began in 1524 with the formation of that
renowned syndicate the " Biru Company," which, like the
Eoman triumvirates, consisted of three partners — Pizarro,
Almagro, and Hernando de Luque.
Henceforth exploration and conquest go hand-in-hand
both in Colombia and Peru, so that the work of coast
survey need not here be followed in separate detail. It
is curious to note in this connection that, for a long time,
all geographical research was arrested at the Eio Maule,
southern limit of the Incas' territory, and of the first
military expeditions sent out in all directions by the
Conquistadores. Even the coast-line was left undeter-
mined till it was followed by Alonzo de Camargo from
south to north (Fuegia to Callao) in 1540, and in the
opposite direction by Sarmiento in 1579. The later
and more accurate surveys of the southern fjords and
archipelagoes were mostly carried out by Cook, Fitzroy,
and other officers of the British Admiralty, although the
terminal insular headland of Cape Horn (properly Hoorn)
was first rounded in 1616 by the Dutch navigator, the
name of. whose native town it bears. With him was
associated his fellow-countryman Jacob Lemaire, whose
name is also perpetuated in Lemaire Strait between
Fuegia proper and Staten Island.
Inland Expeditions — Early Voyages on the Amazons
Of the early inland expeditions, the most memorable
is that of Gonzalo Pizarro, younger brother of the con-
58 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
queror of Peru, who left Quito to discover the land of
cinnamon on Christmas day 15o9. His party descended
into the eastern forests, followed down the river Coca to
its junction with the Napo, and built a small vessel in
which to discover " the great river." Gonzalo sent his
lieutenant, Francisco Orellana, to reconnoitre, who basely
deserted his chief. Thereupon Gonzalo and his followers,
after suffering terrible hardships, returned to Quito, while
Orellana descended the great river and, reaching its
mouth, sailed out of it in August 1541, finally arriving
at the Spanish settlement of Culiagua. In one of the
encounters on the river between the Spaniards and the
natives, Orellana reported that he saw ten or twelve
women fighting in front of the Indians. The Spaniards
called them Amazons, and Father Carbajal, the historian
of the voyage, described the female warriors. His work
is lost, but the historian Herrera quoted from it, and the
river received the name of Amazons.
In 1560 a second expedition imder Pedro de Ursua
descended the river Amazons, but his followers mutinied
and murdered him, chose a desperate ruffian named Lope
de Aguirre as their leader, and completed the voyage.
It is a horrible story of rapine and cruelty, the mutineers
being finally defeated at I>urburata in Venezuela by the
royal troops.
In 1637 two monks descended the Amazons to its
mouth, and their arrival at Para induced the governor to
despatch a Portuguese expedition up the river, under the
command of Pedro de Texeira. The expedition was
accompanied by the Jesuit Cristoval de Acuiia, and
Texeira reached Quito in 1638. The Jesuit Father
observed everything on the way, noted down the names
of Indian tribes, their manners and customs, the names
of the rivers flowinsj into the Amazons, and the natural
LATER ETHNICAL AND HISTORICAL RELATIONS 59
productions of the country. Acuiia's valuable work on
the great river and the tribes on its banks was published
at Madrid in 1641. The first descents of the river
Amazons were thus made by Orellana in 1541, and
Aguirre in 1561, and the first ascent by Texeira in
1638, Acuiia being the first to publish a full de-
scription of the river and of the tribes inhabiting
its banks.
Relations of the Whites to the Aborigines
Very great contrasts are everywhere conspicuous in
the attitude of the white intruders towards the aborigines
in the northern and southern continents. The differences,
which must have a biding influence on the destinies of
mankind in the western hemisphere, if not in the whole
world, are not exclusively due to the various nationalities
of the European settlers, as is so generally assumed by
superficial or biassed observers. From tlie present con-
sideration the Guianas, with their feeble white (British,
Dutch, and French) population, may be excluded, as of no
account, while Central America, including Mexico, must
from this ethnical standpoint be transferred from the
northern to the southern continent. We shall then
have, for purposes of comparison, two sharply delimited
ethnological and linguistic areas, to which the convenient
if not quite accurate expressions " Anglo-Saxon " and
" Latin America " have Ijeen applied. Here the term
" Anglo-Saxon " is strained to cover, not only all the
settlers from the British Isles, but also all other European
immigrants (mainly of Teutonic stock), whose mother-
tongue either is or must eventually be English. On the
other hand, by " Latin America " is to be understood the
whole region, as above defined, in which languages of
60 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Latin origin — almost exclusively Spanish and Portuguese
—are dominant.
In this broad statement alone expression is already
given to fundamental differences. Thus in the north we
have but one language, English, which is not merely
" dominant," but practically the mother-tongue of the
whole population, the only important exception being the
French spoken by considerably over one million Franco-
Canadians. But the south is divided between two lin-
guistic domains, while the language of each is scarcely
anywhere the universal speech of all the inhabitants, but
only of the dominant political section. In support of
this statement it may suffice to mention the still wide
range of Aztec and Maya-Quiche in Central America, of
Quichua-Aymara in Peru and Bolivia, of Auca in South
Chile, and of Tupi-Guarani in Brazil, Paraguay and
Argentina, besides the continual spread of English on the
seaboard, and of English, Italian, German and even
Basque in the most progressive regions of Argentina,
Uruguay and Brazil (Sao Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul).
Miscegenation
Behind these differences lies a deeper, to which in
fact they are due. If in the North English is or is
becoming the mother-tongue of all, it is because there
has been no fusion, or none to any serious extent, between
the natives and the whites, but an absolute displacement
of the former by the latter. At present there are
practically no free tribes in the United States outside of
Alaska, and but a few thousands in the Dominion, all
the rest having been swept into reservations and agencies,
where they have no power of expansion, that is, no
future.
LATEli ETHNICAL AND HISTORICAL RELATIONS 61
But in Latin America the relations are entirely
different. Unlike the English " Pilgrim Fathers " and
Virginian planters, the first Spaniards and Portuguese
came admittedly as adventurers, soldiers of fortune, and
treasure-seekers, unaccompanied by their womenkind and
unencumbered by children. Some few in commanding
positions returned for their families, and in the next
century women accompanied the emigrants in consider-
able numbers. Many of the first conquerors, however,
found it wiser for obvious reasons to settle down, and
found new families by alliance with the natives. Nor
could these natives be anywhere bodily displaced in the
cultural zones, which even after the wholesale massacres,
deportations, famines and other attendant horrors, remained
still far too thickly peopled to allow of such summary
processes as were possible amongst the scattered hunting
tribes of the northern prairies.
In South Argentina and Uruguay, the conditions were
not unlike those of the north, as seen by the many points
of resemblance between the Uruguayan Charruas and the
Pampas Indians on the one hand, and the Dakota and
Algonquian nomads on the other. The result also has
been the same — a clean sweep of Charruas and Pampas,
for none of whom was there even time to prepare reserva-
tions, amid the storm and stress of modern social and
industrial developments.
Settlement of Brazil
But the settlement of South Brazil, also a cultureless
region, took place in earlier and less feverish times, con-
sequently with quite different and, in some respects,
surprising results, by which the whole current of history
may be said to have been permanently influenced in
62 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
favour of the Portuguese rivals of the hitherto unchallenged
Spanish supremacy.
Commissioned by King John III. to open up these
southern districts, Martini Aftbnso de Souza founded in
1532 the station of Sao Vicente on the little coaBt-stream
to which he gave the same name, and, at the same time
" made an alliance with the Indians of the Carijo tribes
called Goyana and Piratiningana." Then we are told
that, some thirty years later, these colonists and their
half-caste descendants already formed a numerous and
energetic community, which sent out other settlers,
founded the cities of Santo -Andre and Sao-Paulo, and
" gradually spread over the continent." The population,
it is expressly stated, continued to increase " through the
alliance of the Europeans with the Indians ; while
their posterity, more active and enterprising than
their maternal ancestors, were called Mamelucos and
Curibocas." ^
Later they became known by other names, Vicentistas,
from the captaincy of Sao Vicente, and especially Pav.listas,
from the province of Sao Paulo, and these Paulistas soon
spread the fame and terror of their name over half the
continent. We shall meet them again, attacking aborigines,
Spaniards, and the Jesuit missions with indiscriminate
fury, opening up the mining districts, plunging fearlessly
into the Brazilian backwoods, clearing the land for fresh
settlements, pushing steadily forward, and extending the
frontiers of the Portuguese domain right up to the slopes
of the Cordillera. To the astonishing energy, daring, and
enterprising spirit of these hardy pioneers is mainly due
the fact that South America is at present partitioned, in
nearly equal proportions, between the two dominant Latin
peoples of Spanish and Portuguese speech.
1 M. lie Saint Adolphe, vol. ii. p. 600.
LATEK ETHNICAL AND HISTORICAL KELATIONS 63
The Negro Element
As in other parts of Latin America, great numbers of
the aborigines were captured by the Paulistas for the
mines and plantations, but everywhere witli much the
same results. After thousands and tens of thousands had
perished, without any adequate returns, they had to be
replaced by Negro labour, and thus a fresh ethnical
element was introduced into South as into North America.
The Africans were imported into Venezuela, the Guianas,
and especially the north-eastern provinces of Brazil
and the Peruvian coastlands, mainly from Angola, Upper
Guinea, and the other Portuguese possessions on the
opposite side of the Atlantic.
The new relations thus created again presented the
most marked contrasts in the Anglo -Saxon and Latin
worlds. From the first the contact between the Virginia
planters and the imported slaves was a one-sided affair,
and since the emancipation has virtually ceased altogether.
But in the south, and especially in Brazil, the blacks were
received almost as equals by their half-caste employers,
and in any case the only bar to their fusion in the
general population was their social status. Pace and
colour never counted for much, so that even before the
enfranchisement a straui of black blood was everywhere
perceptible amongst the settled comnninities of Bahia,
Ceara, Para, and surrounding provinces.
Thus it happens that while the whites have presei'ved
their racial purity in the Southern United States, they
have, at the same time, created a " Negro Question," to
be dealt with by future philanthropists and statesmen.
But there is no negro question in Latin America, where
all the ethnical elements have from the first tended to
be merged in a fresh division of mankind, which may
64 COMPENDIUM OF GKOGRArilY AND TRAVEL
eventually acquire a uniform character, but must long
continue to betray its diverse origins in the heterogeneous
nature of its physical and mental qualities.
Mestizo Terminology
Such strides has miscegenation made along the
Brazilian seaboard as far south as Bahia, that full-blood
families, whether white, black, or native, are here rather
the exception than the rule, at least in all the settled
communities. Amongst the urban populations, the ob-
server notices with amazement an endlessly diversified
series of transitional types, for which the rich local
nomenclature totally fails to find adequate expression.
The confusion and perplexity are greatly increased by
the different meanings attached in different parts of Latin
America to some of the terms of this bewildering nomen-
clature, as shown by the subjoined list of the more
important names in current use : —
Cabureto: Cross between Indian and Negress (Brazil).
Cafuso: Issue of Negro and Indian women (Brazil).
Ouriboco : At first a white and Indian cross, now applied to various
white, Inilian, and Negro crosses (Brazil).
Casco : Direct issue of Mulattos on both sides (South America).
CMno : Negro and Indian cross (Spanish America).
Cholo : Issue of Zambos (South America).
Creole: Generally a full -blood white in Spanish America and West
Indies; full-blood black (Brazil) ; the issue of whites and Mestizos
(Peru).
Maiaaluco : Any cross, but especially white and Indian (Brazil).
Mestizo: Any half-breed, white and Negro, but especially white and
Indian (Spanish America).
ihiJatto : Any white and black cross, properly in the first generation,
then all descendants of ilulattos.
Negro : Full-blood black, whether of African or American birth.
Octoroon: Issue of a Quadroon and white ; i.e. a white with a strain of
one-sixteenth black blood.
Pardo : Same as Mulatto (Brazil) ; any half-breed (Argentina).
LATER ETHNICAL AND HLSTOKICAL RELATIONS
65
Quadroo7i ^
^ . - \\ lute witli oue-fourth black blood.
Quarteroon j
Quinieroon : White with one-eighth black blood.
Tapanhuna : Negro and Indian cross (Brazil, local).
Tentc en el Ayrc : Half-breed with predominant white element (Spanish
America).
Xibaro : Same as Tatianlmna.
MESTIZOS OF QUINDIO.
Zambo: Any half-breed, but mostly Negro and Indian; in Peru and
West Indies Negro and Mulatto ; in St. Vincent the half-caste
Caribs.
Zambo Prcto : Issue of Negro and Zamba women (Spanish America).
The amalgam of all these elements must be regarded
in the nature of a compromise in process of completion,
but a compromise in which there would seem to have
been a lowering of the higher without a corresponding
VOL. L F
66 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
raising of the lower elements, except in a few instances,
notably the Paulistas, the Paraguayans, and perhaps some
of the Gauchos, developed under exceptionally ftivourable
circumstances.
Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Administration
The Spanish colonial system was framed in the
interests of the inhabitants quite as much as in those
of the metropolis. But its admitted failure was owing
to the local authorities, who generally disobeyed the
orders from the central government, with the twofold
object of gaining credit by sending home treasure, and
of consulting their own interests. In fact, the colonial
policy of all European nations was much the same before
the nineteenth century, and consisted of oppressive
monopolies and protective measures of all kinds, which
had the threefold aim of inflating the State revenues,
preventing the development of local industries that might
compete with those of the home country, and excluding
aliens from any share in the trade of the colonies. This
policy was carried to extreme lengths by Spain, and
when we read that all intercourse with the outer world
was visited with severe penalties, we feel how justified
is this summary description.
Nor did Portugal lag far behind, and so early as
1503 the Brazil wood, from which, as above seen, the
country took its name, was declared a Eoyal monopoly ;
in the next century various corporations leased from the
Crown the exclusive right of trading with Brazil, while
an extraordinary decree was issued in l701 forbidding
all traffic between the northern and southern provinces.
In 1715 the further development of the local rum
•iistilleries was arrested in the interest of the importers
LATER ETHNICAL AND HISTOlilCAL RELATIONS 67
of brandies from Portugal, and these prohibitive measures
culminated in 1785 with the suppression of all the
weaving industries, those only excepted which provided
the coarse cottons worn by the slaves.
Equally or even more disastrous was the ecclesiastical
regime, which, by the introduction of the Inquisition and
alliance with the civil power, maintained the outward
supremacy of the Eoman Church at the cost of true
religion, manly feeling, and intellectual progress. Even
material loss was caused by the expulsion or exclusion
of the enterprising Jews and " heretics," a loss poorly
compensated by the spread of a veneer of Christianity
amongst the aborigines gathered round the Jesuit missions
of the interior.
One result of the rigid patriarchal system introduced
at these missions was to make the natives somewhat
helpless in the struggle for existence after the suppression
of the Jesuits by Pope Clement XIV. in 1773. When
the missions were dispersed many of the congregations
were destroyed by the more vigorous uncivilised tribes,
and others relapsed into the wild state, while the
survivors have merged in the general half-caste popula-
tions, whose religion consists of a verbal profession of
misunderstood dogmatic teachings, blended with gross
superstitions and coarse outward observances, conducted
by a priesthood which was not distinguished by a high
moral tone.
The Revolt
After the successful proclamation of the rights of man
by the British North American colonists, revolution was
in the air. The feeling of restlessness was intensified
by the great upheaval in France, as well as by the
68 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
writings of Kousseau and the French encyclopedists.
But the opportunity did not come till the opening of
the nineteenth century, when legitimacy was overthrown
by Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsula.
The Brazilian Empire and Republic
Events now took a twofold course in the southern
continent, where the divided Hispano-Lusitanian rule
made itself at once felt. The House of Bragan^a had
always taken a special interest in its trans-Atlantic
possessions, not only conferring the title of " Principality "
on Brazil, but that of " Prince of Brazil " on the heir-
presumptive to the Crown itself. Possibly, despite the
shameful administrative abuses, a latent sentiment of
loyalty may have thus been fostered, as it certainly had
been in the principality of Wales by the like action of
our Edward I. But in any case when the Prince
Eegent, after the occupation of Portugal by the French,
took refuge in Brazil (1808), he was well received by
all classes, and the devotion of the people to this dynasty
was for a time strengthened by the wise policy which
made the Brazilian seaports free to all nations, and in 1815
changed the title of Principality to that of " Kingdom."
But when the founder of this first hereditary monarchy
in the New World returned to Lisbon in 1821, his
eldest son Dom Pedro, who had been appointed Prince
Eegent, found himself compelled by the current of events
to sever the connection with Portugal, and soon after
constituted Brazil an independent empire, himself assum-
ing the Imperial Purple in Eio de Janeiro on 12 th
October 1822. Thus was brought about the independency
of the " Greater Portugal " by the peaceful process of
segmentation, just as in our days the empire itself was
LATER ETHNICAL AND HISTORICAL RELATIONS 69
transformed to a Federal Eepublic, under the title of
The United States of Brazil, also by a bloodless revolution
(Xovember 1889).
The Spanish South American States
Apart from some mutterings and menaces in the
half-Spanish district of Eio Grande do Sul, it is noteworthy
that these happy solutions of high political problems
have at all times been followed by the maintenance of
peace and orderly government throughout the vast con-
tines of Empire and Eepublic. Herein the contrast is
complete between the Portuguese and the Spanish
domains. In the latter the wars of independence, fought
out bravely on both sides, have been followed almost
everywhere by far more disastrous fratricidal wars, by
incessant strife within each separate state, with an
expenditure of blood and treasure out of all proportion
to the interests involved.
The dreams of some of the revolutionary leaders to
replace the old Spanish vice-royalties by a united Spanish
South America, whether on the principle of federation
or otherwise, were quickly dispelled, and indeed shown to
be impracticable on many grounds that need not here be
discussed. The very lie of the land, mostly confined to
the Andean plateaux, and at that time almost destitute
of inter-communications, of itself excluded the idea of
any such political unity. Hence after the removal of the
fictitious bond of unity supplied by the suzerainty of
Spain, the whole region was, so to say, dissolved into its
primeval elements, and reconstituted as a sort of South
American "Heptarchy," in which the chief bonds of
union were and are the Spanish language, everywhere
the common speech of the ruling classes, and the
70 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TKAVEL
republican form of government, generally modelled on
that of North America.
Despite the political convulsions, which happily seem
to show symptoms of exhaustion, a considerable measure
of material progress has almost everywhere been made,
as seen in the marked increase of population, in the
spread of general comfort, the improvement of the com-
munications, the growth of trade, and the development of
the immense natural resources of the land. In some
places, notably South Brazil, Uruguay, and the central
states of Argentina, the progress in all these and other
respects has been prodigious.
All these regions, representing about 2,000,000
square miles, lie fairly within the temperate zone, and
are in every way the most suitable for European settle-
ment. Hence for many years a stream of emigration has
set steadily in this direction from the Spanish and French
Basque Provinces, from Italy, Germany, the British Isles,
and even Eussia, this contingency being chiefly Jews
driven into exile by the persecuting spirit still rampant in
that empire. Hitherto the several communities have kept
much apart, and as all are free to educate their children
in their own way, a long time must elapse before they
are merged in a homogeneous community of one speech,
inspired by a common national sentiment. From this
community are definitely excluded both the aboriginal
and the black elements. Consequently it must ultimately
constitute a compact mass of pure European stock,
reckoned by many millions, which cannot fail to exercise
a controlling, if not a dominant, influence over the
destinies of the southern continent.
Subjoined is a table of all the South American States,
with their respective areas, populations, capitals, and
other details.
LATER ETHNICAL AND HISTORICAL RELATIONS
Republic.
Area in
sq. 111.
Population.
Revenue.
Debt.
Capital.
Venezuela
594,000
2,323,000
£2,060,000
£7,940,000
Caracas.
(1891)
(1896)
(1897)
Colombia
505,000
4,000,000
£2,000,000
£4,744,000
Bogota.
(est. 1895)
(1897)
(1896)
Ecuador .
120,000
1,272,000
£886,000
(1896)
£1,500,000
(1896)
Quito.
Peru
461,000
2,622,000
£1,072,000
£32,530,000 1
Lima.
(1876)
(1896)
(1876)
Bolivia .
567,000
2,020,000
£300,000
£1,152,000
Sucre.
(1893)
(1897)
(1896)
Chile .
204,000
2,712,000
£3,600,000
(1898)
£20,000,000
(1897)
Santiago.
Argentina
1,319,000
3,955,000
£15,000,000
£80,000,000
Buenos Ayres.
(1895)
(1899)
(1899)
Uruguay .
72,000
819,000
£3,070,000
£23,700,000
Montevideo.
(est. 1896)
(1895)
(1896)
Paraguay
98,000
600,000
£1,000,000
£995,000
Asuncion.
(est. 1897)
(1897)
(1897)
Brazil
3,210,000
16,330,000
£31,316,000
£198,000,000
Rio de Janeiro.
(1890)
(1897)
(1896)
^ This debt was cancelled by the bond-holders in 1889, in exchange for
concessions to a body called the "Peruvian Corporation."
CHAPTEE IV
VENEZUELA
Extent — Boundaries — Disputed Frontiers — Physical Features — General
Relief — Northern Uplands — Sierra de Merida — Coast Range —
Cordillera de la Silla — The Southern Uplands : Sierras Parima and
Pacaraima — Earthquakes — Igneous Phenomena — The Venezuelan
Llanos — Scenery of the Llanos — Hydrography — Lake Maracaibo —
Lake of Valencia — The Orinoco Basin — The Delta — Orinoco Scenery
— Gulf of Paria — Climate — Flora — Fauna — Inhabitants— The
Aborigines — Europeans and Mestizos — Prospects of Immigrants —
Historic Retrospect — Topography — Chief Towns — Government —
Social Condition.
Extent — Boundaries — Disputed Frontiers
After the expulsion of the Spaniards the newly-formed
states set about determining their respective frontiers
on the uti possidetis principle of the Spanish government
in 1810. But a little consideration will show that
difficulties were inevitable, and were not solely due to the
greed or ambition of the rival republics. In fact they were
largely caused by the character of the territories which had
to be delimited. They comprised two distinct geographical
groups — the strictly lowland states of Argentina, Para-
guay, and Uruguay, and the highland states of Venezuela,
New Grenada (Colombia), Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and
Chile. But between the two groups there were no
well-marked natural frontiers, so tliat collisions and com-
plications became inevitable, when one group sought to
broaden their boundaries down the slopes to the plains,
while the other, or at least Argentina, endeavoured to
creep as far up the escarpments of the plateaux as possible.
VENEZUELA 7 3
Throughout the nineteenth century Venezuela has
had frontier difficulties with all her neighbours —
Colombia on the west, Brazil on the south, and England,
as heir to the western section of Dutch Guiana, on the
east. The last, by far the most serious, threatened for a
moment to cause a rupture between the two powers,
but was referred in 1896 to the Government of the
United States, at whose suggestion four arbitrators (two
for Great Britain and two for Venezuela), with a president,
were appointed to inquire into the whole question at issue,
the decision of the majority to be final. The point at
issue concerned a small but important strip of coastland
just east of the Orinoco delta, the surrender of which by
England would exclude British Guiana from all access by
land to the Lower Orinoco basin. From a paper on the
subject, contributed by Sir CI. Markham to the Geographi-
cal Journal for March 1896, it appears that England's
right to this district, watered by the Barama and Barima
coast-streams, is indefeasible on the solid grounds of history,
exploration, and effective occupation. Venezuela claimed
solely through Spain,^ which, as shown by the old maps
and other data, never at any time occupied the coastlands
east of the delta, these being described as " Caribana,"
that is, the independent territory of the Caribs. But
England claimed partly through the Dutch, who were in
alliance with these very Caribs ; partly through geographi-
cal research, especially that of Sir E. H. Schomburgk
(1835-45), whose frontier line includes the strip in
1 At least the absurd claim based on Pope Alexander's Bull was not
seriously entertained by the court. The original line of 1493, which
alone had Papal sanction, was superseded by that of 1494, which has never
been determined (see above). A less shadowy claim might have been based
by England on a map in the Spanish archives, dated 1591, with the legend
over an island in the delta: " Aqui estan los Ingleses," that is, "Here
are the Englisli."
74 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TIJAVEL
question, and could scarcely be seriously challenged.
Hence the Court of Arbitration, by its final award
(October 1899), npheld this line except in two places
— Barima Point with the lower course of the Barinia
river, which is assigned to Venezuela ; and farther
inland, where the boundary, instead of following the
Cuyuni river to its head, ascends its Wenamu tributary,
thus leaving the Cuyuni goldfiekls to Venezuela.
It is not without interest to note that certain docu-
jnents of the eighteenth century preserved in the archives
of the Capuchin Friars at Eome show the whole seaboard
between the Orinoco and the Essequibo in possession of
the Dutch.
Towards Colombia the frontier, referred for settlement
to Spain, was laid down in 1891 rather to the advantage
of the western republic, to which was left most of the
Goajira I'eninsula, besides the San Faustino district in
the Eio Zulia valley, and the left side of the Upper
Orinoco between the Meta and Guaviare affluents.
Farther south the line of demarcation coincides with the
Ptio Atabapo to about 20 miles above Yavita, beyond
which it runs due south across several other Orinoco
affluents to the Guainia headstream of the Pdo Negro,
which is then followed to the Brazilian frontier at
Cucahy. Here the line, as agreed to by treaty with
Brazil in 1859, runs east, north, and again east, to British
Guiana near Roraima, at first following the crest of the
divide between the Baria and Cauaburi tributaries of the
Ptio Neo-ro, and -coinciding farther east with the Sierra de
Parima, that is, the water-parting between the streams
flowing north to the Orinoco and through the Ptio Branco
south to the Amazon. These are, at all events to a large
extent, natural frontiers, which have the effect of leaving
nearly the whole of the Orinoco basin to Venezuela.
VENEZUELA
75
The coastlands from the Orinoco delta to the Goajmi
Peninsula, together with the adjacent islets of Cubagua,
Margarita, Tortuga, Orchilla, and Aves, form part of the
republic, which thus delimited comprises an area approxi-
mately estimated at nearly 600,000 square miles, or
rather more than one-sixth of Europe,^ with scarcely a
third of the population of Belgium. But Venezuela con-
sists for the must part of an almost uninhabited wilderness
of uplands and llanos (plains), which were but little
known beyond the settled districts before the explorations
of Dr. W. Sievers in 1885 and again in 1892-93. The
extremely irregular distribution of the population is
shown in the subjoined table of the states and territories
constituting the Federal Kepublic of Venezuela : —
States : —
Area ill sq. m.
Population
(1S91).
ilii-anda
33,696
484,509
Carabobo
2,984
198,021
Bermudez
32,243
300,597
Zamora . . • .
25,212
246,676
Lara
9,296
246,760
Los Andes
14,719
336,146
Falcon and Zulia .
36,212
224,566
Bolivar .
88,701
50,289
Federal District
45
89,133
TERPaTORIES :
Goajira .
3,608
65,990
Alto Orinoco .
119,780\
45,197
Amazonas
90, 928 J
Colon .
166
129
Yuruari
81,123
22,392
Caura .
22,564
—
Armisticio
7,046
—
Delta .
25,347
7,222
Total
593,943
2,323,-527
1 This, however, includes the whole of the recently disputed territories
about the Orinoco delta, nearly 50,000 square miles altogether.
76 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Of this scanty population, which, however, shows an
increase of about 250,000 over that of the census for
1881, as many as 326,000 were returned as full-blood
Indians, and of these 66,000 were still absolutely inde-
pendent, 20,000 reduced, but living in the tribal state,
and 240,000 civilised, that is, occupying permanent
settlements like the general population, but still speaking
their original mother- tongues, chiefly dialects of the
Barre, Carib, and Arawak stock languages. Apart from
a small but unknown percentage of pure white descent,
the rest of the inhabitants may be broadly described as
more or less civilised but turlnilent Hispano-American
Mestizos of Spanish speech. There is, however, a strain
of black blood perceptible, especially in the seaports, due
to the 50,000 Negroes and Mulattos emancipated in
1830, and since then absorbed in the general population.
Physical Features — General Reliet
Were the north equatorial section of the continent
again flooded to a depth of a few hundred feet by the
old inland sea, the general configuration of the Venezuelan
region would stand out in bold relief. The marine
waters, covering about 200,000 square miles of the
present Orinoco basin, would be enclosed on the west and
north by a mountain system rooted in the Colombian
Andes, and sweeping in a gentle curve round to its
eastern extremity at the island of Trinidad. This
system, which consists, like the Andes generally, of a
coast range — the Sierra de Mar, and an inland range —
the Sierra de Merida, with its eastern extensions — would
be seen projecting in a continuous or nearly unbroken
line between the Caribbean and the Inland Sea, while
the latter would encircle towards the south-east another
VENEZUELA 77
upland region extending eastwards through the Guianas
to the Atlantic.
These uplands, like those of Brazil, from which they are
now separated by the Amazon valley, but with which
they would appear to be geologically connected, comprise
within Venezuelan territory the Sierra de Parima (Parime),
Pacaraima, and other ridges and plateaux of very irregular
outline, but forming a complete divide between the Lower
Amazon and Orinoco basins, as the northern system does
between the Orinoco and the Caribbean Sea. Venezuela
is thus seen to consist of three distinct geographical
regions, whose respective areas may be approximately
estimated as under : —
Ai-ea in sq. miles.
Central lowlands, i.e., the Orinoco llanos or plains in
their widest extent 300,000
Northern uplands : coast and inland ranges . , . 100,000
South-eastern uplands ....... 190,000
Total . . .590.000
Northern Uplands — Sierra de Merida — Coast Range
Hitherto the northern system has been commonly
regarded as an eastern extension of the Cordillera de los
Andes, to which at the southern extremity of the conti-
nent would correspond another eastern but submarine
extension running from Fuegia to South Georgia. But
all such geographical parallelisms, so much in favour with
the ancients, have generally had to yield to modern
scientific inquiry, and Dr. Sievers now contests the
views of the older geologists regarding the homogeneous
Andean character of the north Venezuelan system taken
as a whole. It is argued with much force that the term
Andes should be restricted, as it is in popular use, to the
Sierra de Merida, which properly terminates eastwards
78 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND 1 RAVEL
at a pass 1190 feet high leading from the basin of the
Yaracui coast-stream to that of the Cojedes, which drains
to the Orinoco through the Eios Portnguesa and Apure.
This gap would appear to separate two absolutely distinct
orographic systems — that of the Cordillera to the west,
and to the east the " Carib Mountains," that is, the coast
range, which is much older (gneiss, mica-schists and
metamorphic rocks) and belongs rather to the now mostly
submerged or denuded chains of the Antilles. Neverthe-
less it cannot be denied that from the purely geographical
point of view the coast range forms a regular extension
of the Colombian Andes.
Of all the Venezuelan ranges the Sierra de Mericla is
by far tlie most elevated. It alone claims the title of
Nevada, " snowy," thanks to four or five of its peaks
which rise above the snow-line. Such are the Concha
and Coluna, south-east of Merida, both 15,-120 feet high,
while Concha boasts even of a little glacier, which sup-
plies Merida with ice. As everywhere in the Andes, the
Merida highlands develop two or more parallel ridges,
connected by transverse chains of older formation —
crystalline rocks and schists of great age. The upland
plateaux enclosed by these lofty ramparts, and standing over
11,000 feet above sea-level, take the name oi parimos —
bleak, treeless plains, swept by keen blasts or wrapped in
frozen vapour, and generally presenting an Arctic climate
within a few degrees of the equator. Towards the north
the steep cretaceous slopes fall abruptly down to the
narrow strip of woodland separating them from the
Maracaibo lagoon, and here a distinct divide is formed
between the torrents rushing down to the lake and the
streams flowing with a less rapid course to the Apure
affluent of the Orinoco.
VENEZUELA 79
Cordillera de la Silla
East of the Merida highlands follows the Cordillera
de la Silla, the " Saddle Eange," which terminates some-
what abruptly at Cape Codera. Like some sections of
the Peruvian Andes, the Silla presents exceedingly steep
rocky walls to the sea, leaving no beach or inlet except
the little haven of Guaira, and almost everywhere rising
abruptly from the marine depths to a mean altitude of
about 5000 feet. The almost vertical sides oi Naiguata,
the culminating peak (9130 feet), were for the first time
scaled by Spence and Ernest in 1874. The Silla, which
gives its name to the system, is only about 370 feet
lower ; yet it was near this peak that the ditticult track
formerly led over the range from Caracas on the southern
slope down to the port of Guaira.
Beyond the Silla the Sierra de Mar is continued
through the much less elevated Cumana (Cariaco) and
Paria ranges to its termination at the Gulf of Paria
over against Trinidad, which undoubtedly belongs to the
same system. The Paria section, which culminates in a
peak 3510 feet high, runs for a distance of 170 miles
between the Paria and Cariaco inlets, and is entirely of
igneous origin. It has no apparent connection with the
rest of the system, and its existence may be associated
with the formation of the Gulf of Cariaco, which was due
to a submarine convulsion said to have occurred not long
before the discovery.
The Southern Uplands : Sierras Parima and Pacaraima
Although the southern uplands cover a far more
extensive space, they nowhere attain the altitude of the
northern highlands ; nor do they anywhere develop such
80 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
sharply defined mountain ranges. To the whole system
is commonly extended the expression Sierra Parima, in
reference to the mythical Lake Parima, that is " Great
Water," where dwelt El Dorado in a golden palace glitter-
ing with preciovis stones, and whither Pialeigh and so
many other adventurers went in quest of his fabulous
treasures. But the sierra might seem to be almost as
mythical as the lake. The whole region, which still
awaits careful exploration, would seem to have the
aspect of a vast turtle-back plateau, sloping north to the
(Jrinoco and south to the Amazon, traversed by no great
mountain ranges anywhere, but crossed in various direc-
tions by short ridges, and presenting steep escarpments
rather than true ranges towards the Amazonian plains.
These escarpments, that is, the Sierra Parima, with its
eastern extension the Sierra Pacaraima, were not even
visited by the Commission appointed to lay down the
Brazilo - Venezuelan frontier line along their crest in
1880-83. They appear to consist of a granite core
underlying old sandstone strata, and even their highest
peaks probably fall below 6500 feet, while those about
the sources of the Orinoco affluents are estimated by
Chaffanjon at not more than 4000 or 4500 feet. The
Sierra de Mato, one of the northern ridges running close
to the right bank of the Orinoco, rises in a peak measured
by Codazzi to a height of 6170 feet, and in its upper
course the main stream is dominated by the Ccrro Duida
(8120 feet), a most conspicuous landmark, visible for a
great distance up and down the river and indicating the
point where the Cassiquiare branches off towards the
Amazon basin. But this pyramidal bluff is exceeded by
the neighbouring Sierra Maraguaca (8230 feet), which
was long regarded as the culminating point of the south-
east Venezuelan uplands. But this honour must now be
VENEZUELA 8 1
transferred to Mount Icutu, highest dome of the lofty
Sierra Guamapi, which was first approached in 1897 by
Major Stanley Paterson/ and estimated by him at 11,000
feet. Icutu, which with its rapidly sloping sides and
bulging summit, presents somewhat the aspect of a
uitjantic toad-stool, stands near the source of the Ciichivero,
a small stream flowing north to the right bank of the
Orinoco below the Apure contluence.
Earthquakes — Igneous Phenomena
Although Venezuela is literally an unstable land,
subject to frequent and violent underground disturbances,
one of which destroyed Caracas with 12,000 of its
inhabitants in 1812, there is not a single active volcano
in the whole region. But indications of former eruptions
are seen in the lavas and scoriae of San Juan de los
Morros on the southern slope of the Sierra de Mar. At
one time it was supposed that burning mountains existed
in many places. But the flickering flames that gave rise
to the belief are now known to be in no way connected
with such igneous displays. They are, however, a suffi-
ciently remarkable phenomenon of the class popularly
known as will-o'-the-wisps, of more frequent occurrence
and more widely diffused than in any other part of the
world. These curious but harmless inflammable vapours
are seen dancing about at night in every part of the
country, on lowlands and uplands alike, on the flanks of
Duida and of Cuchimano near Cumana, as well as on the
marshy banks of the Catatumbo and other streams flow-
ing to Lake Maracaibo. On the llanos they flare up
amid the tall grasses without burning them, and they
probably indicate the presence of immense stores of gases
"- Geo(jr. Jour. (January 1899), p. 39 sq.
VOL. I. G
82 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
and naphtha reserved for future use. At least the
j^tchy substances oozing up in the Orinoco delta and
elsewhere seem to he associated with the famous bi-
tuminous lake of Trinidad, and to point like it to vast
underground reservoirs of asphalt.
The Venezuelan Llanos
From the southern slopes of the northern uplands the
central plains stretch away to the Guiana forest tracts
beyond the Orinoco delta, and occupy the whole region
between the Sierra de Merida and the northern slopes of
the Parima uplands. Following the trend of the old
marine basin, they sweep like a great arm of the sea
round the western escarpments of these heights, and
here merge southwards in the Amazonian plains. The
llanos are thus largely conterminous with the lower level
of the Orinoco basin, although the expression is generally
restricted to the region bounded by the left bank of that
river. Even in this limited sense, they are far from corre-
sponding everywhere with the popular idea of a vast
level or slightly undulating treeless or grassy plain, like
the North American prairies or the Argentine pampas.
Even after escaping from the higher uplands, tlie Apure,
]\Ieta, Yichada, Guaviare, and other north - western
affluents of the Orinoco, have a fairly rapid course,
obstructed in some places by rapids, thus showing a
gradual rise from the bed of the main stream towards the
Colombian and Venezuelan highlands. Tliis rise above the
former level of the old marine basin represents a portion
of the sedimentary matter washed down by the running
waters, and may therefore be regarded as the talus of
the encirling Cordilleras. Hence the local expressions
llanos altos, " upper plains," and llanos bajos, " lower
VENEZUELA 83
plains," the latter representing the old bed of the inland
sea, and still standing at a mean elevation of scarcely more
than 300 feet above its level. Everywhere the llanos
altos present an agreeably diversified aspect, with much
broken ground, watered by the upper courses of the
Orinoco affluents, and clothed in some districts with a rich
tropical vegetation.
The route followed by Kamon Paez from Maracay to
the Apure valley lay at first through sugar-cane, indigo,
and tobacco fields, varied by extensive cacao plantations
flourishing beneath the shade of the coral-tree {Erytlirina).
The wooded tracts possess a great wealth of valuable
trees, such as the Vera {Lignum vitm), so hard that it turns
the edge of the sharpest tools ; the Guayacan, suitable
for carving and cabinet-work ; the beautiful Alcornoquc,
which offers a grateful shade to the cattle during the
summer heats ; and the Brazil-wood of commerce, as
abundant here as in the reg-ion to which it Qrives its name,
Scenery of the Llanos
But even the llanos properly so called have their
attractions. From the higher slopes a prospect is com-
manded of one of the grandest scenes in nature. At
your feet lies a lovely expanse of meadow, fresh and
smooth as the best-trimmed lawn, with troops of horses
and countless herds of cattle dispersed over the plains.
Here and there the eye alights on glittering pools or
lakelets left by the last rains, and now alive with an
immense variety of aquatic birds. As far as the gaze
can reach, the undulating grassy plain appears like a
shoreless ocean petrified after a storm. No language
could convey a true picture of the varied beauties of the
scene — the harmonious effects of lig-ht and shade ; the
04 COMPENDIUM OF CxEOCxEAPHY AND TRAVEL
l)lending of the various green, blue, and purple tints flit-
ting ill the sunlight over the vast panorama ; the stately
palms gracefully fanning the glowing atmosphere, with
their majestic crowns of broad and shining foliage.
Conspicuous especially is the CojJeniicia tectorum, as
valuable as it is beautiful, with as many names as the
uses to which it is put. To the stock-breeders and
settlers it is known as the palma de cobija, the " thatch
palm," because its leaves serve to thatch their farmsteads ;
it is the palma de sombrero, the " hat palm " of the straw-
hat makers ; and by wayfarers it is termed the ^;(x/?;2a
de eihanico, the " fan-palm," being so used by them against
the flies during their wanderings over the steppe. Still
more beautiful is the Saman, a species of mimosa, which
grows profusely along the banks of the Apure and other
streams, spreading its delicate feathery foliage aloft, like
a dainty parasol. Extensive tracts are overgrown with
this graceful tree, which we are told might supply suffi-
cient material for the reconstruction of all the fleets of
the world.
More characteristic of the llanos proper are the grasses,
often more curious than valuable. Such is the worthless
(jamelote, tall and sharp as a Toledo blade, but useless
even as fodder. In the Apure district is seen the singu-
lar phenomenon of the mcdanos or ranges of low dunes,
formed by the loose sand drifting before the wind over
the boundless plain. They are continually shifting their
form, rising at one time well above the surface, at
another dispersed as tine dust over the steppe. But in
one district, where they have been bound fast by the
roots of the gamelote, they have been transformed to a
low range of permanent hills the so-called Medanos del
San Martin. Some of the grasses are soft and pliable as
silk, and it is owing to their nutritious qualities that the
VENEZUELA 8 5
alluvial plains of the Apure and its tributaries have be-
come so noted for stock-breeding.
Hydrography — Lake Maracaibo
On the rock-bound north coast there is no room for
the development of fluvial basins. Hence between the
Goajira Peninsula and the Gulf of Paria there is only
one navigable watercourse — the Catatumbo — all the rest
being mere torrents or insignificant coast-streams, which
find their way in independent channels to Lake Maracaibo
and the Carribean Sea. From the precipitous slopes of
the encircling Cordilleras Maracaibo receives several
such streams, whose deposits are slowly filling in this
extensive but shallow inlet. The most copious is the
Catatumbo, which, besides the Orinoco, is the only river
in Venezuela used for navigation. The main channel
with its Zulia affluent is accessible to small steamers
throughout the year ; but its basin belongs in part only
to Venezeula, its head-waters having their source in the
Santander uplands, Colombia. In fact, it is through
its upper valley that the Colombians gain access to
Maracaibo.
This marine inlet, the largest in the southern con-
tinent, is rather in the nature of a lake or lagoon than of
a gulf, being so far landlocked that the tides are scarcely
felt inside the bar. A little way beyond this bar its
waters are quite fresh, the supplies it receives from the
surrounding streams being greatly in excess of the marine
currents. The " Sack of Venezuela," as it is called, has
a circuit of 3 7 miles, with an area of 9000 square miles,
and an extreme depth of 500 feet, but shoaling rapidly
towards the Mochila or inner basin.
The outer and much larger basin was formerly known
86 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
as the Gulf of ^'enice, a name connected with that of
the republic itself. When Hojeda and Vespucci first
navigated its waters in 1499 they noticed on its shelving
margin one of those aquatic stations, or groups of pile
dwellings, which are met so frequently in similar localities
in Malaysia, New Guinea, and other parts of the world.
The waterways between the rows of houses, with the
" gondolas " (canoes) moored to tlie posts, were so sugges-
tive of Venice that the place was named Venezuela,
" little Venice," while the inlet for a time bore the name
of Venice itself. From this aquatic station the sonorous
term Venezuela spread to the whole region. The case
is exactly parallel to that of Brunei, where are also to
be seen such pile-dwellings, and the name of which, since
the first visit of ^Magellan's associate Pigafetta, has been
extended to the whole island of Borneo.
Lake of Valencia
Besides the Maracaibo lagoon Venezuela possesses
at least one real fresh-water basin — the Lake of Valencia,
which fills a great part of the rich Aragua valley, and is
one of the most remarkable sheets of water in the world.
Although it seems completely encircled by the coast and
inland ranges. Lake Tacarigua, as it is called by the
natives, has two different outlets on the west side close to
the city of Valencia. By one of these emissaries it has
occasionally sent its overflow through the Trincheras
northwards to the Agua Caliente affluent of the Caribbean
Sea, and by the other it has communicated several times
through the Paito southwards with the Pao tributary of
the Orinoco. According to the oscillations of level, the
Caiio Camburi, that is, the southern emissary, has thus
been alternately an affluent and an effluent of this erratic
A'ENEZUELA 8?
.lacustrine basin. Its waters, which iiave become slightly
brackish, and have an extreme depth of 300 feet, had
been steadily subsiding for some years before 1882 ; but
since that time the lake appears to have again acquired
some measure of stability, and is even said to be now
rising to its former high level, when it discharged to the
Orinoco.
The Orinoco Basin
The Orinoco is one of the great rivers of the world,
being exceeded in volume only by the Amazon and
Parana in South America, and elsewhere by the Missis-
sippi, St. Lawrence, Congo, Niger, Yang-tse, and Brahma-
putra. But several others surpass it in length, for
although it draws contributions from the eastern slopes
of the Colombian Cordillera, its course lies nearly ten
degrees north of the equator, where the width of the
continent is greatly contracted by the rapidly receding
contour-line of the Guianas. Thus the Orinoco delta
stands about twelve degrees of longitude west of the
Amazon estuary, which to some extent is a measure of
the different lengths of the two main streams.
But the farthest head-waters of the Orinoco, or
Orinucu, the form given by its first explorer, Diego de
Ordaz in 1531, lie not in the Colombian Cordillera nor
in the Sierra de Merida, but in the Parima uplands,
where its source was discovered by Chaffanjon in a rivulet
above the Salto de los Franceses, at no great distance from
the Cassiquiare confluence. The channel of this stream,
which forms the connecting link between the Amazon
and Orinoco systems, is continued southwards through
another stream, which again ramifies into the Baria and
Canaburi, both affluents of the Eio Negro. At the junc-
tion of the Cassiquiare, which sends only about a third
88 COMI'EXDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
of its current to the Orinoco, the bed of the main stream
stands not more than 920 feet above sea-level. Thus
the al:»solute fall from this point to the delta, a distance
of about 1300 miles, is less than 9 inches per mile,
so that by the removal of a few obstructions here and
there the main stream, with many of its ramifications,
would be accessible for liglit craft to the foot of the
Cordillera, and through the Cassiquiare to the heart of
the continent. Yet these magnificent inland waters are
at present (1900) utilised in a regular way only by a
single steamer of the Eoyal Mail Steamship Company,
plying once a fortnight between Trinidad and Ciudad
Bolivar. So gentle is the current to this point that the
voyage up-stream takes only six hours more than the
return trip — 36 and 30 hours respectively. During the
rainy season, from May to November, smaller steamers
continue the service from Bolivar to Nutrias on the
Middle Apure. But beyond Caicara, at the Apure con-
fluence, there is no regular navigation at all, although
steamers ascend as occasion requires to various stations
below the Apure rapids.
Beyond the Cassiquiare junction the main stream,
keeping close to the Parima escarpments and in some
places even forcing its way through the projecting spurs,
trends north by west, north, and north by east to the
Apure confluence, where it bends round to the east for
the rest of its course to the delta. In the section
between the Cassiquiare and the Apure it receives only
one notable contribution — the Ventuari — from the
Parima uplands. But on its left bank it is joined by
several important affluents, such as the Guainia, the
Guaviare, Meta, and Arauca, all descending from the
Colombian Cordillera, and traversing the llanos in nearly
parallel south-easterly valleys. The Guaviare, which is
VENEZUELA 8 9
navigable for small steamers for about 600 miles to the
Ari-Ari ford, rolls down a volume of no less than 11 2,0 00
cubic feet per second during the floods.
Between the Guaviare and Meta confluences are
developed the romantic Maypures and the Atures rapids,
which are the only serious obstructions of this nature
throughout the whole course of the main stream, and are
caused, not by any general rise in the fluvial valley, but
only by the projecting Parima heights, which are here
and there cut right through instead of being turned by
a bend to the west. The Atures rapids, about 6 miles
long with a total fall of 30 feet, are indicated from a
distance by two notable bluffs, the Cerro Pintado, " Painted
Hill," and the Cerro de las Muertos, "Dead Men's Hill," the
former so called from the rude figures with which they
are covered, the latter from the sepulchral chambers in
its cavernous recesses. Jointly the two cataracts repre-
sent a total fall of not more than 70 feet, but present
an insurmountable obstacle to the navigation even at
high water.
The Meta, which debouches below the Ature falls, is
even a more important tributary than the Guaviare.
Drawing its supplies through numerous branches from
the Cordillera on the upper llanos, it expands at times to
a width of nearly a mile, and would be navigable for
large vessels but for the sandbanks obstructing the
channel at various points. As it is, steamers drawing
8 or 10 feet ascend about a third of its course during
the floods, when it discharges a volume estimated at
160,000 cubic feet per second.
Beyond the Arauca follows the Apure, the typical river
of the llanos, joining from the west and consequently
continuing the main axis of the Orinoco valley from its
delta right up to the Colombian Andes. Hence, in a
90 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAYEL
hydrograpliic sense, many geographers have regarded the
Apure as the true upper course of the Orinoco. Even
from the standpoint of navigable length, if not of volume,
it might still claim to hold this position, because the
navigation of the main stream is arrested at the Atures
rapids, whereas no falls or other obstructions interrupt
the placid course of the Apure below the confluence of
its two main branches — the Sarare and Uribante. Its
drainage area extends up the slopes both of the Colombian
and Venezuelan Andes, and develops a vast inland delta
which mingles its lateral channels with the neighbouring
Arauca, and during the floods covers a space 6 or 7
miles in extent.
About midway between this and the marine delta, the
old town of Angostura, the " Narrows," now renamed
Ciudad Bolivar in honour of the " Liberator," marks the
head of the tidal waters at a distance of 260 miles from
the sea. At this point the mean discharge per second
is estimated by Orton at 500,000 cubic feet, while the
depth of the lower reaches in many places exceeds 180
feet. At the Xarrows the annual rise varies from 40 to
50 feet, beginning about the middle of April and con-
tinuing till November, when the plains are often again
transformed to a great inland sea 100 or 120 miles in
extent. Along these periodically flooded banks the
natives live in pile-dwellings of two stories, one occupied
at low water, the other during the inundations.
The Delta
As it approaches the sea the main current continues
its easterly course in a straight line to Barima Point,
without throwing off any important liranches to the right,
that is, to the conterminous district of British Guiana, or
VENEZUELA 91
higher up. Thus the whole of the deltaic region is
developed toward the north, and in fact, with a front of
about 430 miles, occupies all the space between the Boca
de iSTavios, " Ships' Mouth," and the Gulf of Paria. It is
divided into the Lower or Southern, and Upper or Northern
Delta, by the Macaros, another navigable Branch, which
presents the shortest route from Trinidad to the interior,
and is consequently utilised by the steamers plying
between Port of Spain and Ciudad Bolivar. The delta
has a total area of 7000 square miles, and is intersected
by as many as fifty channels flowing directly to the sea ;
but of these many frequently shift their beds, and not more
than seven are permanently navigable by large vessels.
Subjoined are approximate estimates of the chief
features of the Orinoco basin, viewed as a whole : —
Drainage area ....
Length .....
Length of navigable waters
Discharge per second at low water
, , , , , ) at high water
Mean discharge per second
Mean annual rainfall
364,000 sq. miles.
1,450 miles.
4,300 ,,
238,000 cubic feet.
875,000 ,, ,,
500,000 ,,
76 inches.
Orinoco Scenery
The banks of the Orinoco are fringed along its many
windings by magnificent forest trees, which project their
shadows far across the stream on both sides. During
the rainy season its waters rise above the level of these
woodlands, covering the trunks of the trees, and often
exposing their upper roots after subsidence. Amid the
rich and varied foliage are everywhere conspicuous the
thick and leathery leaves of such plants as flourish only
beneath the bright skies of the tropical world, where the
glorious crowns of leafage never lose that freshness and
92 COMPENDIUM OF CxEOGEAPHY AND TPiAVP:L
luxuriance which is assumed by northern woodlands only
in the lovely season of early spring. Hence the darker
tones, blending with the gleams of flitting sunshine,
develop a play of colour effects on which the eye never
wearies to gaze. Countless creepers twine themselves
round the stems and branches of the trees, forming here
and there dense masses of foliage, impenetrable to the
keenest sight and often bathed in the loveliest and most
dazzling colours. In many places the observer lights
upon natural bowers and arboreal groupings displaying a
wealth of beauty, and even a symmetry, which could
scarcely be imitated by the most consummate art.
Gulf of Paria
On entering the sea the fluvial currents are caught up
by the marine current, which here sets steadily from the
south-east to the north-west, in the direction of the
" Serpent's Mouth," between the delta and Trinidad.
But this dangerous passage is too narrow and too shallow
to admit the whole stream, which here ramifies round
Trinidad. The inner branch, further swollen by the
western channels of the delta, penetrates into the Gulf of
Paria, which thus serves as a receptacle for much of the
alluvial matter carried seawards by the Orinoco. Some
of the silt is no doubt again dispersed through the
" Dragon's Mouth," as the northern passage is called ; but
enougtx remains to gradually raise the bed of the gulf and
thus restore Trinidad to the mainland, from which it was
torn by some igneous disturbance at a remote period.
Climate
As in Mexico and other parts of Spanish America,
the climates in Venezuela are largely disposed in vertical
VENEZUELA 93
order. The hot zone, ascending from sea -level to an
altitude of about 2300 feet, has a mean temperature of
77° Falir., and may on the whole be described as not
unhealthy. Above this the temperate zone, with an
average temperature of about 65°, ranges to a height of
6600 feet, and is one of the most delightful regions in
the world — a perfect Eden of natural loveliness, where
are combined all the outward elements conducive to
health and an agreeable existence. Here the coldest
months are December and January, when the thermometer
seldom falls below 59°, while in April and May, which
are the hottest months, it scarcely ever rises above 77°.
In the cold zone are comprised all the highland
districts from 6600 feet upwards. In the Sierra de
]\Ierida it penetrates at some points into the region of
perpetual snow. The almost Arctic character of the
elevated parimos in these highlands has already been
described. Here the mean annual temperature is little
more than 5° or 6° above freezing-point, and the altitude
of 14,600 feet marks the upper limit of vegetation, which
ranges so nmch higher in the western Cordilleras.
Flora
In Venezuela the vegetable kingdom is exceptionally
rich and varied. It constitutes at present the chief
natural resource of the country, its products forming
almost the only staple of trade, while many of the species
are extensively cultivated.
Foremost amongst these is the coffee plant, which has
succeeded in so many parts of the New World, and con-
stitutes the chief source of wealth in Venezuela. The
best coffee grows in the temperate districts, and more
especially in those tracts that are exposed to frequent early
94 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
mists. In the warmer lands it nourishes Lest beneath
the shade of large trees, and it is noteworthy that it is
always cultivated in this way in the Caffa uplands, where
the plant is indigenous. In the fourth or iifth year it
yields its first crop, which is gathered in October. The
berries, resembling little red cherries, have their outer
pulpy part first removed by a special apparatus, and are
then left for a short time to decay, after which tliey are
dried in large paved enclosures. They are afterwards
passed on to the trilla, where, either by a stamping or
rolling process, they are freed from their parchment-like
inner husks. From the trilla they pass to the venteador,
where they are subjected to a final cleansing operation.
In 1898 the area under coffee was estimated at nearly
200,000 acres, which yielded about 50,000 tons for
exportation.
Other important vegetable products are cacao {Thco-
hroma cacao), which thrives best in the hot low -lying
districts, and needs very little attention on the part of
the growers. The finest quality comes from the planta-
tions of Chuao, which are owned by the University of
Caracas, and produce a yearly crop of about 1300 lbs.,
while the whole State yields over 70,000 lbs. The
natural home of the cacao-tree is in the great virgin
forests of the Amazon, where it still grows wild in great
profusion. It belongs to that class of plants in which
the flowers and fruit have the singular property of
sprouting directly from the woody stem and branches.
Of sugars the Tahiti cane {Saccharum officinaimm) is
the variety most widely cultivated. The ripe cane is at
first crushed between iron rollers, the juice flowing
through pipes into a large reservoir. From this it is
drawn off into iron caldrons, and boiled up to a certain
degree, the scum being removed and the fluid otherwise
VENEZUELA 95
cbriiied. It is then poured into wooden moulds, where
it gradually hardens. One of the tinest kinds of cotton,
known as the South Sea Island variety, has been success-
fully cultivated in the district of Lake Valencia and in
several other localities. But the total yield is inconsider-
able, and appears to be falling off. Indigo also, formerly
cultivated to some extent, has been killed by the aniline
dyes, or else has given place to the more profitable coffee
industry. Of maize the white, red, black, yellow, and
violet varieties are grown. Amongst the medicinal
plants the most valual^le are chinchona, of which there
appear to be many varieties, though the botanical names
of several are unknown ; and sarsaioarilla, a climbing
plant of a woody nature, much esteemed as a blood-
purifier, and exported to the annual value of about £9000.
Amongst other less important plants are the Amargoso,
noted for its intensely bitter bark; the curious Maya
fruit {Broraelia chrysaniha) ; the Micadia gonodada, locally
called </«aca, also an excellent blood - purifier ; Guazuma
ulmisotia, the bark of which is used in the preparation of
refreshing drinks ; Weinmannia glabra, the bark of which
has tanning properties ; Fepe de cola, the seed of Cola
acuminata, said to be a specific in affections of the liver ;
the Pcpe de cedron, or seed of the Sinatra cedron, reputed
to be a successful antidote against the bite of venomous
snakes ; the OJo de Zamuro, a cure for asthma ; the fruit
of the Cujajo, from the tallow-like fatty substance of
which candles are made ; and several other oleaginous
products.
Fauna
In Venezuela are represented nearly all the members
of the South American mammalian fauna — the howling
monkey and five other anthropoid species, several of the
9() COiMrENDIUiM OF GEOGKAPHV AND TRAVEL
cat family (jaguar, puma, ocelot), the sloth, ant-eater,
and numerous species of bats, besides the lamantin
and the lonina, two cetaceans which frequent the
Lower Orinoco. In the same basin are also met three
kinds of saurians — the true crocodile, sometimes ovei-
20 feet long, the cayman and the bava {Alligator
punctatus).
Of considerable economic value are the turtles of the
Middle Orinoco, which lay a prodigious number of eggs,
chiefly in the district between the Meta and Apure
rivers. From these are annually extracted some 20,000
gallons of oil, and many of the turtles are about 3 feet
long, weighing as much as 70 lbs. Another oil, the so-
called " caripe butter," is obtained from the fjiiacharo, a
bird which frequents the Caripe caves west of the Gulf of
Paria, and other parts of the coast as far as Colombia.
In the esteros, as the rich grazing- grounds of the llanos
are called, the perennial pools and rivulets attract an
endless variety of animal and especially bird life. The
garzeros, or " heronries," as the myriads of flocks are
called from the dominant species, form colonies miles in
extent, and comprise every imaginable variety of heron,
crane, stork, ibis, some snow-white, some a delicate blue,
others gray or pink, and many a brilliant scarlet. Well-
beaten tracks are made under the bushes by the tramp
of the small members of the cat family, who prey on the
fled2;lin"s of these feathered communities. Notable is
the gidriri, a small duck so called from its cry, which at
times rises on the wing in such incredible multitudes as
for a moment to produce the effect of a solar eclipse.
The marshy and malarious districts are infested by the
culeb7'a de agua, the " water-snake," as the huge anaconda
is here called. Its rival, the boa-constrictor, keeps to
the woods, and both prey on wild animals, such as deer
VENEZUELA
97
and the capybara, and on calves or colts when they stray
from the fold.
The jaguar ranges everywhere ; alligators swarm in
ANACOKDA.
all the streams, while the rattle-snake and even the more
dreaded lachesis, besides other venomous species, lurk in
the meadows and thickets near the wayside. Nearly all
the streams teem with edible fish, and the fresh-water
turtle, whose breeding-grounds along the river banks
VOL. I H
98 COaMPP]NDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
yield prodigious quantities of eggs, which do not appear
to be appreciably diminished though largely preyed
upon by man and animals. But the running waters are
also infested by several noxious creatures, such as the
sting-ray, armed with a sharp spine several inches long;
the 'payara, whose upper jaws are furnished with a pair
of fangs like those of the rattle-snake ; and the electric
eel, with a battery strong enough to administer a powerful
shock to horses entering the shallow muddy pools to
quench their thirst.
Most dreaded is the really fornddable carihe, a blood-
thirsty creature like the gold-fish, but stouter, with a
ferocious-looking bull-dog head and projecting lower jaw.
With its sharp three-edged saw-like teeth it can bite in
two a strong steel fish-hook, and it seems to scent blood
from afar, judging from the shoals that rapidly gather
round a wounded animal in the water. It will even
attack wounded alligators in this way, as well as the
crocodile, of which one true species is found in the
Orinoco waters. But the wild hog is not an indigenous
species, but the common European pig run wild. In
some districts it has multiplied prodigiously, and often
causes great damage by uprooting the nutritious grasses,
which are usually replaced by a rank worthless vegetation.
Inhabitants — The Aborigines
Most of the tribal names recorded by the early
writers have disappeared, or cannot now be identified.
Many of these, however, were not ethnical but mere local
designations, such as Pariagoto, Cnmana(]oto, " People of
Paria," '' People of Cumana," and so on. But others
indicated real tribal groups that have either been
absorbed in the general Hispano- American population or
100 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TPtAVEL
else exterminated in the wars with the first settlers.
Amongst the latter were probably the Ayamans, a
dwarfish people met by Fredemann in the uplands south
of Barquisimeto, and described as scarcely 3 feet 6 inches
high. The statement, which has never been verified, may
be true, because pygmies of about the same size have been
seen in the Congo forest zone, and the remains of similar
little people have been found in the pre-historic graves of
Switzerland. The great bulk of the present Venezuelan
aborigines belong to the Barri, Carih, and Arav:ak stocks,
and it is interesting to note that Mr. im Thurn describes
the Arawaks of Guiana as the shortest of all the natives
of that region.^ Eeports have also been circulated by
Mr. E. C. Haliburton and others of dwarfish or under-
sized tribes in the Upper Amazon forests, and in Dutch
Guiana, where they go by the name of Makalak, and are
said to be of a " brilliant reddish-yellow " colour. But
none of these reports are beyond suspicion, and there
is at present no evidence to show that any of the
Venezuelan tribes fall lielow the average height of the
undersized peoples of the Andean plateaux or Fuegia.
Numerous rock-carvings, or rude pictorial writings or
scratchings occur in many districts on the banks of the
Orinoco (Ature rapids), and even at altitudes of 7000 or
8000 feet near the Naiguata peak in the Sierra de Mar.
Such carvings as well as idols, or at least stone statues,
abound especially in the Sierra de Merida, and the
resemblance they bear to those of the Colombian plateau
leave little doubt that they represent an easterly spread
of Muysca culture in pre-Columbian times. By the
present Indians, most of whom are descended from the
Timotes, who were said to be of Muysca speech, these
statues are regarded as mere munecos or " dolls." But if
^ Among the hidians of Guiaiij p. 188.
VENEZUELA 101
a cross is carved on the face of any of these dolls they
are at once transformed to sa7iticos, or "little saints," and'
may then be worshipped like the other saints of the
Eoman Calendar.
On the Orinoco delta there still survive a few
thousand of the amphibious Warraus (Guaraunos), who
are already mentioned by Ealeigh, and described by
many later observers. But they are diminishing in
numbers, like the Maypures, Otomacos, Guaicas, Guaharibos,
and most of the other Orinoco aborigines, who have been
decimated by wars, epidemics, " fire-water," the forced
labour system, and hardships of all kinds. All the tribal
groups are destined to disappear at no distant date, if
not by extinction by absorption in the gente de razon,
the " rational people," as the settled and mixed com-
munities are called.
Europeans and Mestizos
Few of the so-called white populations, except those
of the Grita district on the northern slope of the Sierra
de Merida, are of pure Spanish descent. Many of the
first settlers were Basques, and for a long time a Basque
Association enjoyed a monopoly of the trade with Spain.
The seaports of La Guaira and Puerto Cabello were
founded by them, and Bolivar, leader of the revolution,
belonged to the same energetic race. The Catalonians
are also largely represented, and all these Spaniards,
whether of pure or mixed descent, are said to be com-
pletely acclimatised not only in the temperate zone, but
even on the low -lying coastlands and on the llanos.
Thousands of other Europeans and Anglo-Americans
enjoy perfect health in Caracas and the other large towns
of the uplands, and the rich Aragua valley between the
102 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
inland and the coast ranges is eminently suited for
European settlement.
Prospects of Immigrants
But until a stable government is established, intending
emigrants will be warned by the fate of the German
Colony of Tovar from seeking new homes in tliis region.
Carried away by his faith in Teutonic energy and endur-
ance, the distinguished Italian naturalist, Agostino Codazzi,
founded in 1842 a German agricultural settlement at this
place, which stands on an elevated plateau some -40 miles
from Caracas. For a few years the new arrivals, mostly
irom the Black Forest, succeeded fairly well, and their
picturesque homesteads, resembling Swiss chalets, gave
signs of comfort and prosperity in the Tovar district.
But about 1854 progress was arrested by the civil
commotions, which for a number of years paralysed all
industry and enterprise in Venezuela. In 1870 the
whole settlement was laid waste by the soldiers of
tiuzman Blanco, who converted the place into a fortified
camp, demolishing whole rows of houses, and seizing every
available object suitable for the purpose. Eedress or
compensation could not be obtained, and since then the
settlers, to the number of 1250, have been dispersed over
the country.
Historic Retrospect
Venezuela began its colonial existence as a dependency
of Xew Granada — -the present republic of Colombia —
where the At/dicncia Rial was established at Bogota in
1550. In 1718 the colony became a vice-royalty,
and in 1777 the four provinces of ]\Iaracaibo, Caracas,
Cumana, and Guiana, that is the present republic of
Venezuela, were detached from Xew Granada and con-
VENEZUELA 103
stitiited a separate colony under the title of the " Cap-
taincy-General of Venezuela."
The War of Independence, begun in 1810, was for a
moment arrested by the disastrous earthquake of 1812,
when the capital was levelled to the ground. Advantage
was taken by the clergy, nearly all royalists, of the coin-
cidence that this catastrophe took place on Holy Thursday,
exactly a year after the declaration of independence, to
declare that the hand of God had convulsed the land to
crush the rebels. Their strongholds fell one after the
other, and at last their leader, Miranda, surrendered the
ruins of Caracas to its old masters.
But the dying embers of revolt were rekindled by the
numerous bands of volunteers, who poured in from the
Antilles, from the United States and Europe, and at one
time numbered as many as 9000, chiefly Anglo-Americans
and English. Nevertheless little progress was made
until the llaneros, that is, the hardy " cow-boys " of the
llanos, hitlierto staunch royalists, suddenly took sides
with the patriots, and by a harassing guerilla warfare
exhausted the strength of the disciplined Spanish forces.
At last the decisive battle of Carabobo (1821) put an
end to Spanish misrule, and the old Captaincy of
Caracas became for a time 'an integral part of the
Eepublic of Colombia, which at first comprised the
three present republics of Colombia, Ecuador, and
Venezuela.
The success of the general movement was by common
consent attributed to the " Liberator," Simon Bolivar, on
grounds that have since been called in question. In any
case the united confederacy, proclaimed by him in 1819,
held together only till the year 1828, when it was dis-
solved by the Convention of Ocana into three independent
states, the Republic of Venezuela being constituted out of
104 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
the four departments of Orinoco, Apure, Venezuela, and
Zulia.
During the period of absolute self-government Vene-
zuela lias been the theatre of as many general and partial
revolutions as perhaps any other Hispano-American
State. It would be tedious to follow the vicissitudes of
these fratricidal struggles for power, some of which have
been carried on with great ferocity, while others have
entangled the republic in foreign complications, arising
out of boundary questions or else out of claims for
compensation for losses inflicted on British, German,
or French subjects by one or other of the rival
factions. These political commotions show little sign
of abatement, and so recently as June 1898 fresh
fuel was added to the flames by the assassination of
ex-President Crespo.
Topography — Chief Towns
As modern states are constituted, a safe indication of
their economic condition may in most cases be had from
the proportion of the urban to the rural population, and
generally from the growth of the towns and especially of
the chief centres of trade and the industries. Judged by
this test, Venezuela must take rank with the most back-
ward countries in the world. In the subjoined table of
the sixteen largest places in the republic it will be seen
that the population of ten only exceeds 10,000, and of
one only 50,000, while the collective population of all
falls below 300,000 as compared with the 2,323,000 of
the whole country. In other words, A^enezuela is still
mainly inhabited by scattered rural communities and
nomad tribes, with scarcely any large industrial or com-
mercial centres : —
106
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Caracas
. 72,000
Puerto Cabello
. 11,000
Valencia .
. 38,000
Ciudad Bolivar
. 11,000
Maracaibo .
. 34,000
Tocuyo
. 10,000
liarquisiineto
. 31,000
Maturin
. 10,000
IJarcelona .
. 13,000
Maracai
7,500
La Guaiia .
. 12,000
Cumaria
. 6,500
Ciudad de Cura .
. 12,000
Merida
. 5,000
Gnanare
. 11,000
Victoria
5,000
Caracas, the capital of the repuljlic, was founded by
Diego Losada in 1567 on the southern slope of the Silla
range, at an altitude of about 3000 feet above the sea.
It was captured and sacked by Drake in 1595, and since
then has suffered greatly from disastrous earthquakes, and
still more disastrous sieges during the Civil wars. Yet
it has always risen from its ruins, and is now by far
the largest city, as well as the chief centre of intellectual
life in the State. Besides a national library of 32,000
volumes, and a museum, there is a university, which since
the suppression of the ecclesiastical seminaries in 1872
has chairs both of divinity and the natural sciences. From
its port of La Guaira Caracas is distant only two miles in
a straight line ; but so steep are the slopes on both sides
that the railway, which since IS S3 has superseded the
old track over the crest of the Silla range, has a total
length of no less than 23 miles. At La Guaira, where
the normal temperature of about 82° Fahr. is rendered
almost unbearable by the moist atmosphere and sultry
nights, there is no natural haven of any kind. In 1821
nearly all the shipping was dashed to pieces on the
encircling rocks by a violent tempest ; but since then a
pier and a few other harbour-works afford a little shelter
to the vessels that here ship the coffees of the Aragua
valley in exchange for European wares.
Valencia, at the west end of the lake to which it gives
its name, is even an older place, and occupies a more
VENEZUELA
10'
central position than Caracas. After the secession from
Colombia it was for a time the seat of Government, and
is still the most flonrishing agricultural centre in the
republic. The northern route to the spacious natural
harbour of Puerto Cahcllo passes down the Ar/ua Calicnte
(" Hot Water ") valley, which takes its name i'rom the
Tr inch eras thermal streams, which are amongst the hottest
LA GUAIRA.
in the world, varying with the seasons from 196'' to 206°
Fahr. Soutliwards Valencia communicates through the
prosperous rural towns of Giudad de Cura, Maracai, and
Turmcro, with the finest pastoral districts of the upper
llanos.
But west of Valencia the populations still continue to
avoid tlie plains, so that all the chief towns lie either on
the inland or the coast ranges, or else on the neighbourino;
108 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
seaboard. Such are Merida, in the heart of the Sierra of
like name, at an altitude of 5450 feet, which has converted
its old ecclesiastical seminary into a not very flourishing
university ; Trujillo and Barquisimeto, still in the uplands ;
Tiicacas, Tocuyo, Coro, and Maracaibo on the coast. The
little haven of Tucacas near Tocuyo owes its prosperity
to the railway, 60 miles long, which connects it with the
copper-mines of the Aroa district. It is proposed to
continue this line to San FeliiJe, Barquisimeto, and the
other inland towns in this mineral region, and also along
the coast to the historical but now decayed town of Coro
at the neck of the sandy Paraguana Peninsula. Coro,
founded in 1527, was the starting-point of the famous
expedition under the German Captains Fredemann,
Alfinger, and others, which led to the discovery of the
Colombian plateau, the Eio Magdalena, the llanos, and
the Orinoco. Por some time it was the capital of
Venezuela, but after its capture by the English in 1567
the seat of Government was removed to Caracas. Mara-
caibo, formerly Nueva Zamora, was founded in 1571 on
the west side of the channel connecting the outer and
inner Maracaibo basins. It thus commands the natural
outlet of the vast region comprised between the Colombian
plateau and the Sierra de Merida, hence must always
remain the chief forwarding station for the coffee, cacao,
cattle, hides, minerals, and other produce of the surround-
ing slopes. In the vicinity are the lacustrine dwellings
of Santa Rosa, which exactly resemble those sighted by
the first explorers, from which the whole country took
the name of Venezuela.
Few other places call for mention except the little
seaports of. Barcelona and C'umana on the coast east of
La Guaira, and Ciudad Bolivar, which, although situated
on the (!)rinoco in the heart of the llanos, must also be
VENEZUELA 109
regarded as a seaport. At present it is the only important
commercial centre in this vast basin ; yet even including
the thriving suburb of Soledad on the opposite (left) bank
of the river, the population scarcely exceeds 14,000.
Amongst the numerous railway projects, which must
remain projects till the establishment of a stable govern-
ment, is one to connect the capital across the llanos with
this station of Soledad. Here the Orinoco contracts at
the Angostura or " Narrows " to a width of less than half
a mile, and in mid-stream rises the Piedra del Medio, or
" Middle Eock," by which, when the time comes, the line
will easily be carried across the river to Bolivar, and
thence to the foot of the Parima uplands.
Until some such scheme of inter -communication is
carried out, these desolate wilds must remain uninhabited,
except by a few scattered Carib or Arawak tribes. No
attempt has yet been made to develop their natural
resources, so that in the whole region there appears to be
not a single permanent station or centre of civilised
population. Yet, judging from the gold-washings in the
alluvial parts about the Cuyuni and Barima rivers, the
country probably abounds in rich gold-bearing reefs, as
well as in iron and other useful minerals.
Government — Social Condition
The charter of fundamental laws, which dates from
1830, and was modified in 1881, is based on the con-
stitution of the United States, the chief difference being
a larger measure of self-government conceded to the
provincial and local administrations. The President,
who is elected only for two years, is aided by six ministers
and a Federal Council of nineteen members, the latter
being appointed by the Congress also for two years. The
VENEZUELA 111
Council from their own body elect a President, who is
ex-officio President of the Ptepublic. He has no veto
power over the decree of Congress, which consists of the
Senate (three memljers for each of the eight States and
for the Federal district) and the House of Piepresentatives
(one to every 35,000 of tlie population). Both Houses
are elected for four years, the former by the Legislature
of each State, the latter by public election. The central
Government has charge of the territories and colonies,
and of the general defence, while the several states or
provinces have each their own legislature and executive,
with complete control over their own financial and judicial
afiairs. In fact, the only bond of union is that of the
national defence, and surprise has often been expressed
at the violence of the rival factions, when the coveted
piize — a vetoles's President, holding office for two years —
seems to be of such little value. But the President is
often virtually a Dictator, who administers the public funds
in the interest of himself and his partisans. Perhaps
under these circumstances they may claim some credit for
moderation, seeing that the collective foreign and internal
debt scarcely exceeded £8,000,000 in 1898. In the same
year the revenue and expenditure were estimated to balance
at £1,612,000. The chief source of revenue is the Customs
(over £1,000,000), and the chief items of expenditure
the administration (Civil Service), and the interest on the
debt. The charge for defences is slight, the standing army
comprising only about 4000 men, and the navy compris-
ing only three steamers and two sailing-vessels.
The sum yearly expended on elementary education
averages about £100,000 since 1870, when pubhc
instruction was made free and compulsory. In 1898
the attendance at the Federal and State free schools
exceeded 100,000. For higher education provision is
112
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
made by two universities (Caracas and Merida), 22 Federal
colleges, 26 private colleges, 11 national colleges for girls,
and a few technical schools, with a total attendance of
nearly 5000, and a public expenditure of £35,000.
Although the ecclesiastical establishments have been
suppressed or secularised, the Iioman Catholic remains
the State religion. Toleration is extended to other
denominations, which, however, are forbidden public pro-
THE CAPITOL, CARACAS.
cessions and all other outward display. In 1897 about
400 miles of railway had been completed, and in the
same year the total exports exceeded £4,400,000, of
which £60,000 were taken by Great Britain in exchange
for £790,000 of British produce. Thus the exchanges
at present are largely in favour of the United Kingdom,
which also enjoys most of the profits of the carrying-
trade, not only on the high seas but also in the naviga-
tion of the Orinoco, which has mainly been developed Ijy
British enterprise.
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CHAPTER V
COLOMBIA
Boundaries — Frontier Questions — Extent, Areas, and Populations —
Physical Features — The Colombian Andes — The Eastern Cordillera —
The Central Cordillera — The Western Cordillera — The Sierra Nevada
de Santa Marta — H3'drography — The iMagdalena-Cauca Basin — The
Magdalena — The Cauca — The Siuu, Atrato, San Juan, and Patia
Rivers — Lacustrine Basins : Lakes Fuquene and Guatavita — Climate
— Flora — Fauna — Inhabitants — The Cultured Peoples — The Chibchas
— Primitive Mining Process — • The Wild Tribes — The Goajiros
— Topography — Chief Towns of Colombia — The Discovery — Conquest
and Settlement — Colonial Administration — The Revolution — Present
Regime — Religion — Education — Natural Resources — Mineral
Wealth.
Boundaries — Extent, Areas, and Populations
The " Eepublic of Colombia," which siuce 1885 is the
official title of this State, occupies about half a million
square miles of territory in the north-west corner of the
southern continent, together with the isthmus of Panama
in Central America. Apart from this outlying depend-
ency, which is dealt with elsewhere, Colombia stretches
from a little north of the equator to the Atlantic, pre-
senting a coast -line of about 1300 miles both to the
Pacific and to the Caribbean Sea. Landwards it is con-
terminous on the east with Venezuela, on the south-east
for a short distance with Brazil and Peru, and on the
south with Ecuador. Here also the frontiers may be
estimated at nearly 1300 miles, although they have been
VOL. I. I
114
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
definitely settled only towards Venezuela. The tracts
contested with the other border States involve some very
extensive districts watered by the western affluents of
the Amazon. But they are at present of such slight
economic value, being for the most part little -known
wildernesses roamed by a few nomad wild tribes, that
none of the litigants seem eager for a final settlement.
Two continuous and parallel zones are chiefly affected,
one roughly comprised between the Eios Napo and
Putumayo, the other lying between the Piedra del Cocu}'
and Tabatinga on the Amazon. Here the line running
north and south, as laid down by Biazil, overlaps that
claimed by Colombia by about 180 miles. Ecuador
draws its eastern boundary in such a way as to include
the middle course of the Putumayo, and even a strip
beyond that river, while Peru wishes to secure the lower
course of the same river. The whole question was
referred in 1894 to Spain, whose decision is still pending.
But whatever that decision may be, the Colombian
Kepublic must still possess a vast domain of probably
over 500,000 square miles, considerably more densely
inhabited than A^enezuela, with a population estimated
at about 4,000,000, and distributed over the nine de-
partments of the State as under : —
Departments.
Area in sq. miles.
Population,
(est. 189G.)
Antioquia
22,316
500,000
Bolivar
21,345
280,000
Boyaca
3.3,351
720,000
Canca .
257,462
650,000
Cunilinamarca
79,810
600,000
Magdalena
24,440
100,000
Santandei-
16,409
560,000
Tolima
18,069
306,000
473,202
3,716,000
Panama
31,571
1 . . 504,773
285,000
Tota
4,001,000
COLOMBIA 115
No regular census has been taken since 1870, when
the population was returned at 2,951,000, while an
official estimate for 1881 gave 3,878,000. Hence, if
the estimate for 1896 is approximately correct, there
has been an increase of about 34 per cent during the
last three decades, despite the usual political disorders,
the insalubrity of the low-lying tracts and the absence
of immigrants. Thus the increase is almost exclusively
due to the excess of births over the mortality, an excess
at present estimated at from 60,000 to 70,000 yearly.
On the other hand, the uncivilised aborigines appear to
be rapidly disappearing, having fallen from 220,000 in
1881 to 150,000 in 1896, if the calculations are correct.
Besides these wild tribes there are about 200,000 more
or less civilised and settled full-blood Indians, who are
distinguished from the general population chiefly by their
speech. Since the emancipation of the slaves, the
Sambos, as all with a strain of black blood are here
called, have decreased everywhere except on the coast-
lands where they enjoy a certain immunity from ma-
larious affections.
All the rest of the inhabitants, that is nine-tenths of
the whole, are returned as " whites," although they are
for the most part undoubtedly a cross between the
aborigines and Spaniards from Andalusia, Catalonia, the
Basque Provinces, and other parts of the Peninsula.
All are of Spanish speech, and enjoy absolute social
equality with the few whites who have here and there
preserved their racial purity. As in Venezuela, all
the settled communities are concentrated mainly on
the elevated plateaux, avoiding both the hot eastern
slopes facing the Amazonian plains and the low-lying
malarious districts about the Lower Magdalena and
Atrato rivers.
116 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
Physical Features — The Colombian Andes
Although the Andean system is continued without
any break from Ecuador into Colombia, the northern
section differs in one important respect from all other
parts of the Cordillera. Elsewhere the ramifications
enclose elevated plateaux which are usually traversed
by cross ridges connecting the outer ramparts. But in
Colombia the plateaux, with one or two exceptions, are
replaced by deep river valleys disposed longitudinally,
that is, parallel with the ramifying ranges. Thus it
happens that, while many of the great rivers of Ecuador
and Peru, for instance, have their sources on the eastern
escarpments and drain east to the Amazon, several of
those farther north flow in long depressions between the
Andean ranges, and find independent outlets in the
Caribbean Sea.
The Eastern Cordillera
Immediately north of the equator, where it enters
Colombian territory, the Andean system spreads out like
the ribs of a fan into three distinct ranges, which are
sharply defined by the two fluvial valleys of the rivers
Magdalena and Cauca. The Eastern Cordillera, which
is by far the longest, comprises four more or less distinct
sections — Miraflores, Summa Paz, Cocui, and Negra
(Ferijaa), — which vary considerably in altitude, but have
a general north-easterly tread. Beginning in a low ridge
about 6000 feet high about the sources of the Putumayo
and Yapura affluents of the Amazon, the Miraflores chain,
so named from its highest peak (9200 feet), runs with a
gradual rise nearly due north to the Sierra de Summa Paz,
the " Mountains of Highest Peace," skirting the Cundi-
namarca plateau at a mean elevation of 11,000 feet, and
COLOMBIA 117
in the Nevada (14,146 feet) penetrating into the region
of eternal snows. Viewed from Bogata the Nevado
seems, when bathed in the rays of the setting sun, like
another Olympus, the serene abode of the immortals, and
to this circumstance it owes its title of Summa Paz,
which is often extended to the whole Eastern Cordillera.
Beyond the Pan de Azucar (the "Sugar-loaf," 12,140
feet) a transverse ridge is projected along the north side
of the old lacustrine depression of Bogota, where the
whole space limited westwards by the Magdalena valley
presents the aspect of an exceedingly rugged mountain
mass carved by the running waters into a confused group
of heights and crests, and merging northwards in the
more regular Sierra Nevada de Cocui.
Here the Eastern Cordillera attains its greatest eleva-
tion in several domes from 16,000 to 16,700 feet higli.
Beyond the Tama (13,126) and Cachiri (13,780) peaks,
near the sources of the Apure affluent of the Orinoco, the
Sierra de Cocui bifurcates round the Maracaibo basin, the
eastern branch bending round to join the Venezuelan
Sierra de Merida, while the western, that is, the Sierra
de Perijaa or Sierra Negra, runs at a lower elevation due
north to the neck of the Goajira Peninsula. At first
this northern section rises considerably above 10,000
feet in several crests, such as the Rorqueta (10,768 feet)
and the Cerro Mina and Cerro Pintado, both 11,000 feet.
But farther on the range falls to below 6000 feet, and
is crossed by passes 4000 and 3000 feet high, affording
easy communication between the Lower Magdalena and
the Maracaibo basin. In the Motilones district one peak
rises above 8000 feet, while another, Cerro Pintado, a con-
spicuous mass of white limestone diversified with bands of
light and dark green vegetation, rises near the extremity
of the Sierra Negra to an estimated height of 11,800 feet.
118 COMPEXUIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
The Central Cordillera
West of the Eastern follow the Central and the
Western Cordilleras, the former presenting an un-
broken rampart of Alpine aspect between the Magdalen a
and Cauca valley, the latter separating the Cauca from
the Pacific drainage area. The Central, or QvAndio
Cordillera, as it is often called, from the famous historical
pass near the middle of the system, differs from the two
lateral ramifications both in its greater altitude and its
more rugged highland features, as well as in its almost
exclusively volcanic character as far north as the
Antioquia plateau.
Close to the Ecuador frontier rise the three cones of
Azufrcd (13,360 feet), Cumlal (15,720), and Chiles
(15,680), which, however, seem to belong rather to the
Western than to the Central Cordillera. In fact, the
main axes of all three systems cannot here be very
clearly distinguished, as they all converge a little farther
north in the Pasto knot, where are grouped three other
volcanoes, the Bordoncillo (Fatascoi), the Camjpanero
(12,470 feet), and the Pasto (14,000), which gives its
name to this remarkable Alpine entanglement, and is
perhaps the most active volcano in Colombia. It often
ejects red-hot stones to a great height, and from its huge
crater flows a copious stream charged with sulphuric
acid. In the neighbouring little Cocha tarn the Putu-
mayo has its farthest western source.
A little farther north the Central Cordillera broadens
out in the Buey plateau, where is the so-called " Massif
of Colombia," true hydrographic centre of the whole
region. Here four important streams, rising in close
proximity, diverge to three different basins — the Patia
direct to the Pacific, the Caqueta through the Amazon to
COLOMBIA 119
the Atlantic, the Magdaleua and Cauca to the Caribbean.
On the ridge separating the Patia from the Cauca stands
the extinct Sotara cone (14,500 feet).
At the north-west extremity of the Cocomtcos chain,
with its live snowy peaks, rises the still restless Purac6,
which, after the explosion of 1849 was reduced to a
truncated cone about 16,000 feet high. From its flanks
the famous Rio Pasambio, " Vinegar Kiver," which is
highly charged with sulphuric and other acids, tumbles
over a romantic waterfall 260 feet high. North of the
Gucmacas Pass (11,000 feet), which affords access from
the Upper Cauca to the Upper Magdalena valley, the
triple-peaked Huila (18,000 feet) still emits sulphurous
vapours, and although the chain falls beyond Santa
Catalina (16,170 feet) down to the Central Quindio Pass
(11,440), it again rises a little farther north in the
Tolima cone (18,400), — culminatnig point of Colombia,
unless it is to be deprived of this honour by the snowy
crest of the Sierra de Santa Marta. Tolima, which
stands a little east of the main axis, has been quiescent
since 1826 and 1829, when columns of vapour rose from
the central crater. But it has developed several parasitic
cones on its flanks, while solfataras have sprung up on
the surrounding paramos and as far down as the Quindio
Pass.
Farther north follow Santa Isabel (16,760), with
thermal springs at a temperature of 148° Fahr. and the
huge mass of the snowy Ruiz (17,390), not yet quite ex-
tinct, beyond which the igneous system proper terminates
in the Alto Pcreiro, surmounted by the imposing Mesa
Nevada de Herveo (18,340). From the transverse ridge
of -San Miguel (9025) three short branches diverge
northwards in the direction of the Antioquia plateau,
where the main axis is dominated in the Santa Rosa de
120 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TRAVEL
los Osos ridge (" Bear Mountains ") by the San Jose peak
(9000), and farther north by the twin-crested Yarumal
(7470 and 7230). The escarpment:? of the Antioquia
plateau here fall rapidly down to the low-lying alluvial
plains watered by the converging currents of the Eios
Cauca and Magdalena.
The Western Cordillera
North of the Pasto knot the Choco Bange — as the
Western Cordillera is often called from the Choco
aborigines formerly occupying its slopes — runs for some
distance nearly due north, and so close to the left bank
of the Eio Cauca that in its upper course this river seems
to flow in a trench of enormous depth between rocky
escarpments several thousand feet high. Here the Choco
system already attains its greatest elevation in the gold-
bearing Cerro Torra (12,600 feet), which was scaled in
1878 by Mr. R B. White. Farther on the Farimo de
Frontino Citara stands at a mean altitude of a little over
11,000 feet, and the same elevation is maintained by the
Faramillo, where the various ramifying ridges of the
Cordillera diverge northwards between the Cauca and
the Upper Leon valleys. In the northern section the
San Jeronimo chain, prolonged north-eastwards by the
Murmucu group, falls below 5000 feet. But the ridge
running in the same direction from the Quinamari
plateau to the Gulf of Uraba rises to 6600 feet in the
Chigurrado peak at the eastern entrance to that inlet.
Although the Choco range nowhere develops any igneous
cones north of the Pasto group, it resembles the other
ramifications of the Colombian Andes in its general
geological constitution — a central backbone of crystalline
rocks underlying extensive cretaceous formations which
COLOMBIA 121
were deposited in shallow waters probably in late
Secondary times.
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
To a totally different system belongs the isolated mass
of the snowy Santa Marta, which, although occupying a
triangular space of little over 6000 square miles between
the Magdalena delta and the Goajira Peninsula, rises,
according to some estimates, to a height of no less than
19,000 feet. But the measurements of F. A. Simons,
who in 1875 reached the Parimo de Chirugua (16,000
feet), and in a second expedition came within 500 feet of
the summit, were considerably reduced by later estimates,
which at present oscillate between 17,000 and 18,150 feet
(Ptitter). This superb mountain mass is almost completely
separated from the Central Cordillera by the valleys of
the two rivers Cesar and Eancheria, the former flowing
north-west to the Magdalena, the latter encircling the
eastern slopes in its winding course to the Caribbean Sea.
The view presented by the precipitous northern slopes
rising abruptly from the marine depths, and, clothed up
to the snow -line by a vegetation of extraordinary
splendour and variety, is one of the grandest in the New
World. Granites and metamorphic rocks with some
recent lavas appear to be its chief geological constituents.
Earthquakes have frequently been recorded, and as
igneous eruptions are said to have occurred in the
eighteenth century, there is little reason to doubt the
statement that the Sierra is partly of volcanic origin.
Hydrography — The Magdalena-Cauca Basin
From the general lie of the land, as above set forth,
its drainage system almost explains itself The three
122 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Cordilleras form, broadly speaking, three divides, — the
eastern, between the Atlantic and the Magdalena ; the
western, between the Pacific and the Cauca slopes ; and
the Central, between the Magdalena and the Cauca valleys.
Again, the streams flowing to the Atlantic either through
the Orinoco or the Amazon are, with two or three excep-
tions, comprised only in their upper courses within the
Colombian frontiers, and belong rather to the neighbouring
States of Venezuela and Ecuador, where they are described.
On the other hand, the Pacific slope is too narrow to
allow room for large fluvial valleys, so that only two
rivers worthy of note — the Patia and the San Juan —
find their way to this basin. There remain the Atrato,
almost a frontier river, flowing to the Caribbean in an
old marine channel, and the two great central arteries —
the Magdalena and the Cauca — through which the
greater part of the drainage of the three Cordilleras,
that is of Colombia proper, is conveyed also to the
Caribbean. Even these converge in their lower courses,
entering the sea through a common delta, so that, strictly
speaking, they form but one hydrographic system.
The Magdalena
But no adequate impression of the extent of this
system is conveyed by the small-scale maps of Colombia,
which are alone accessible to the general public. Hence
most readers will perhaps learn with a feeling almost
akin to incredulity that the Magdalena, that is, the larger
eastern branch, is the fourth largest river in South
America, being surpassed in length and volume only by
the Plate, Amazon, and Orinoco, that it is over 1000
miles long, and is navigable at high water throughout its
lower and upper courses for 830 miles, with a single
124 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TRAVEL
break of about 20 miles, and is joined by over 500
affluents from the Cordilleras, while the drainage area of
both branches is estimated at about 100,000 square
miles, that is, 8000 square miles more than the total
area of England, Scotland, and Wales.
Yet for many miles in its upper reaches the Magda-
lena has the aspect rather of a mountain torrent, rushing,
like the Cauca, down a steep incline between the high
rocky walls of the Central and Eastern Cordilleras.
Eising about 2° K lat. in the Buey lakelet, which gives
its name to the surrounding plateau, it takes a course
north by east parallel with the two Sierras to the con-
fluence of the Neiva, which marks the head of the upper
navigation about 170 miles from its source. Thanks to
the numerous contributions tumbling down from the
encircling hills, the current here becomes broader, deeper,
and more tranquil till it approaches the important station
of Honda, where are developed a series of rapids about
20 miles long between Arrancaplumas and Yeguas. At
this point, 603 miles above Barranquilla in the delta, the
lower navigation is completely arrested, and the portage
thus formed is now turned by a short railway, which
belongs to an English company, and which it is proposed
to continue to Conejo, 12 miles below the rapids. The
lower course, which presents a clear navigable waterway
of over 600 miles uninterrupted by any obstruction, is
at present utilised by as many as forty steamers, all
stern- wheelers, and with capacities ranging up to 300
tons.
Lower down the Magdalena is joined, chiefly on its
right bank, by several large affluents, which are useless
for navigation and noted especially for their wild romantic
scenery. Such are the Funza, which a short distance
below the Bogota plateau develops the magnificent
COLOMBIA 125
Tequenclama Falls, 475 feet high, with a volume of o^^er
4000 cubic feet per second; the Rio Narc, which joins
the left bank at the Nare gorge, where the main stream
is 100 feet deep, with a discharge of 180,000 cubic feet
per second during the Hoods ; the Sogamoso, largest of all
the affluents on the right bank, which is formed by the
junction of the ChicaviocJia and Saravita, the latter fall-
ing in a narrow gorge 800 yards in the space of 3 miles,
and then disappearing in an underground channel for a
distance of over 200 yards.
The Cauca
After leaving its roclcy bed in the Cordilleras, the
Magdalena winds in a somewhat sluggish and ramifying
course over the marshy and malarious plains below
Antioquia to Tacaloa, where it is joined by the Cauca
about 200 miles above the delta. At the confluence the
Cauca has a discharge of nearly 78,000 cubic feet per
second, and seems scarcely inferior in volume to the
Magdalena. The length of its course to this point is
also about the same ; but it flows in a narrower and
more precipitous channel, which is fed by fewer tributaries,
and is navigable only for some miles in the higher
reaches. Hence the united stream rightly retains the
name of the Magdalena for the rest of its course through
the lowlands to the relatively small delta which is
developed a little to the west of the Sierra de Santa
Malta. This delta, which is known as the island de los
Gomez, has a seaward frontage of about 1 2 miles between
the two chief branches, the Boca, de, Rio Viejo and the
Boca de Caniza. This branch, which lies to the west, is
the main mouth, but in order fully to develop the river
trafflc a safe passage for sea-going vessels requires to be
126 COMrENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
opened from Savanilla by this channel to BarraiKiuilla,
where begins the fluvial navigation proper. Pending the
necessary improvements, the Boca de Caniza route,
formerly utilised for the cattle trade with Cuba, has l^een
abandoned in favour of the railway now opened from
Barranquilla to Savanilla on the coast. When the
shifting bar is deepened, vessels drawing 24 feet will be
able to ascend the Lower Magdalena to its junction with
the Cauca.
The Sinu, Atrato, San Juan, and Patia Rivers
The low-lying district between Savanilla and the Gulf
of Uraba is traversed by the Sinu, a sluggish stream
which rises in the Paramillo heights, reaches the coast
at the Morosquillo inlet, and is accessible to small craft
for over 100 miles at high water. Farther on the
spacious Gulf of Darien is entered through a large delta by
the Atrato, which rises near the source of the San Juan
at the low sill here forming the divide between the
Atlantic and Pacific basins. Owing to the heavy rain-
fall, fed by the vapours from the two contiguous oceans,
the Atrato receives a large number of short tributaries
from the surrounding uplands, and, after a course of
about 400 miles, discharges into the lower part of the
gulf a volume which is estimated, during the fioods, at no
less than 175,000 cubic feet per second. Such a volume
is out of all proportion to the extent of its basin, which
scarcely exceeds 24,000 square miles, and the conse-
quence is that large quantities of alluvial matter are
continually deposited throughout its lower course and
along the west side of the gulf.
Thus has already been filled in the old marine channel,
and the large delta with as many as fifteen shilting
COLOMBIA 127
mouths is now advancing steadily across the head of tlie
gulf, so that the time must come when the Cnlata, or
" Sack," as the southern inlet is called, will be trans-
formed to a lacustrine basin. Not more than two of the
mouths are navigable, and even these are obstructed by
bars, which exclude vessels drawing over 5 or 6 feet.
But higher up the main stream is from 40 to 60 or even
70 feet deep, and with a little dredging at the entrance
would be accessible to the largest vessels for over 100
miles from the gulf. At present it is utilised only by a
few boats and steamers of light craft ; yet the Atrato
valley must become one of the great highways of the
world's traffic whenever the projected inter- oceanic ship
canal is constructed. It was already pointed out by
Fidalgo, over a hundred years ago, that the two navigable
Eios Atrato and San Juan might be connected by a
cutting a little more than a mile in length. It has also
been shown that the divide might easily be pierced at
the Easpadura gorge, and other more or less feasible
schemes have been proposed by Trautwine, Porter,
Selfridge, and other engineers.
Selfridge, who has surveyed all the rival plans, sums
up in favour of the Atrato-Doguado line, which might be
carried out at a cost of about £11,000,000, and is also
recommended by its more healthy climate and by the
possession of natural harbours at both ends. But owing
to political and other causes, all these projects have been
rejected for the Panama route, already partly constructed,
at a prodigious cost, under the auspices of France, and
that of Nicaragua, which has been taken in hand by the
United States Government.
The Ban Juan, which continues the main axis of the
Atrato to tlie Pacific, is nearly 200 miles long, but with
its affluents presents a total navigable waterway of about
128 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TPtAVEL
oOO miles. Unfortunately it suffers from the same
drawback as the Atrato, and the bars at the mouths of
its delta a little north of Buenaventura have nowhere a
depth of more than 6 or 7 feet. Its discharge, estimated
at 50,000 cubic feet per second, exceeds that of any
other fluvial basin on the Pacific slope of the southern
continent.
The Patia, which also reaches the coast through an
obstructed delta, has its sources in the Colombian knot,
being formed by the junction of the Sotara descending
from the Sotara volcano and the Guaitara, which flows
from the Pasto volcano. The Carchi, that is, the upper
course of the Guaitara, forms for some distance the
political frontier between Colombia and Ecuador, and
here it is crossed on the route between Popayan and
Quito by the Eumichaca arch, which is still popularly
known as the " Incas' Bridge," although the Incas had no
hand in its construction. It is a natural curiosity, like
that which spans a torrent rushing down to the right
bank of the James Eiver, Virginia, but of smaller size.
After escaping through the narrow Minama gorge from
the Choco range, the Patia winds through the marshy
coastlands to its delta, which, like those of the San Juan
and Atrato, advances some distance beyond the normal
shore-line.
Lacustrine Basins : Lakes Fuquene and Guatavita
Like those in so many other regions of the Cordillera,
the old Colombian lacustrine lakes have nearly all been
drained by the streams flowing either eastwards to the
Orinoco and Amazon, or northwards to the Caribbean.
Lake Fuquenf, the largest of those still surviving from a
former geological epoch, has, even within the memory of
COLOMBIA 129
man, been considerably reduced in size. The village of
Fuquene, from which it is named, formerly stood on its
banks, but is now 3 miles distant, and travellers in the
seventeenth century describe it as a large sheet of water
nearly 30 miles long and 8 wide, whereas at present it
is only 4 or 5 miles by 3. The lake, which has a mean
depth of about 24 feet, is traversed by the Saravita
branch of the Sogamoso affluent of the Magdalena.
The Cundinamarca plateau was undoubtedly at one
time a vast lacustrine basin, which has discharged most
of its contents through the Bogota (Funza) to the Upper
Magdalena. Nothing now remains except a few little
flooded depressions, one of which, however. Lake Guata-
vita, is of some historic interest. In pre-Columbian
times this lakelet w^as the scene of certain periodical
ceremonies, which unquestionably gave rise to the myth
of El Dorado. One of the solemn functions fell to the
part of a great chief of the Chibchas, who, powdered all
over with gold-dust, plunged into the pool, and the
ablution by which he was divested of his glittering garb
was taken as a proof that the offering thus made of all
his wealth was accepted by the tutelar deity of the
Chibcha nation. This was the true " Man of Gold,"
whom, even after his discovery, the treasure -seekers
continued to go in quest of over half the continent.
Climate
Owing to its highly-diversified relief, the disposition
of the three Cordilleras, narrow pent-up fluvial valleys,
sloping inland plains, flat marshy coastlands, irregular
distribution of heat and moisture, Colombia presents a
greater variety of climates than almost any other region
of equal extent. So completely is latitude neutralised
VOL. I K
130 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
by elevation on the uplands, that, despite their proximity
to the equator, some of the more favoured plateaux enjoy
a delightful climate, corresponding, as regards temper-
ature, somewhat to the spring and autumn of the
temperate zones. Here the extremes of winter and
summer are unknown, and the alternating seasons, which
follow the regular course of the sun, are determined
rather by the varying degrees of moisture and dryness
than by those of heat and cold. Thus there are two wet
seasons {veranos), when the sun is at the zenith, and two
dry seasons (inviernos), when he approaches the tropics.
On the Bogota tableland the glass oscillates between
about 50° and 78° Fahr., while the annual rainfuU rarely
exceeds 45 inches. The heavy downpours are often
accompanied by terrific thunder and hail -storms, but
after their passage leave the atmosphere pure and bright.
Owing, however, to local causes, clear skies are a raie
phenomenon on the Pacific slopes of the Western Cordil-
lera, where the verano may be said to prevail throughout
the year. Being completely sheltered from the cool
north-east trade-winds, the Pacific seaboard retains the
heavy, moisture-laden clouds rolling up from the ocean,
and is thus exposed to drenching rains at all seasons.
Another contrast is presented by the sultry inland
plains sloping from the Eastern Cordillera towards the
Orinoco and Amazon, where the mean temperature
seldom falls below 86° Fahr., and in some places, the
so-called "Colombian hells," rises to 90° or 91°. Even
more stifling heats prevail in some of the central fluvial
valleys, where the cool trade -winds are intercepted by
the ramifying Cordilleras. Here the glass indicates a
mean of about 88°, often rising as high as 101° in the
shade. In fact the Magdalena and Cauca valleys are
nearly ten decrrees hotter tlian the Atlantic coastlands.
COLOMBIA 131
which, despite their greater distance from the equator,
are themselves hotter than the Pacific slope. The
difference has been attributed to the influence of Hum-
boldt's cold Pacific current.
Special conditions prevail on the low-lying Atlantic
seaboard, which is exposed to the full fury of the trade-
winds, and although true hurricanes never range quite so
far south, the Caribbean waters are often churned up by
the fierce north-easterly gales. The rainfall is excessive
on all these coastlands, ranging from 100 inches about
the Santa Marta slopes to perhaps 200 in the Atrato
valley and on the Pacific slope. This heavy discharge,
combined with the sweltering heats and the supersaturated
soil of the flat lowlands, sufficiently accounts for the
malarious nature of the plains traversed by the ramifying
branches of the Pio Magdalena. Here cutaneous diseases,
leprosy, and elephantiasis, are very prevalent, and nearly
all the inhabitants of certain villages present a repulsive
sight, with face and body spotted all over, like the jaguars
of the neighbouring thickets. In the upper valley goitre
and cretinism are common, so that in no part of the
world are greater contrasts presented than by the
salubrious and almost vernal climate of the phiteaux
and the fever-stricken riverine valleys and lowlands of
Colombia. .
Flora
Like all moist tropical lands, Colombia possesses an
extremely rich and varied flora, which, however, is of a
somewhat cosmopolitan character. The relati\'ely few
indigenous species are associated with numerous forms,
which have gravitated towards this transitional region
from the Southern Andes, from Venezuela, and from
Central America. Although nowhere forming continuous
132 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
forests, but growing in isolated clumps or intermingled
with other plants, the palms are amongst the most char-
acteristic and useful members of the vegetable kingdom.
Such are the tagua, whose melon-shaped pods contain the
hard grains known as " vegetable ivory " ; the Carludovica
pahnata, the ribs of whose fan-shaped leaves supply the
material of the costly " panama hats " ; the corneto and
wax-palm, the former with plum-like fruits growing in
enormous clusters, weighing up to 200 lbs., the latter
with a straight and slender stem, which yields as mucli
as 24 lbs. of a waxy substance. In the Central Cor-
dillera these palms range up to over 10,000 feet, and
the same altitude is reached by the tree-ferns, also a
numerous family applied to a variety of purposes. With
the stems of some placed side by side, like railway
sleepers, are constructed those empalisados, " palisade
roads," without which certain marshy districts would be
impassable.
Amongst the numerous medicinal plants is the cedron,
said to be even a better specific against agues than the
chinchona, of which there are several varieties. Other
more or less characteristic forms are the racaclia, known
as the celery of the Andes ; the hefaria, or American
alpine rose, resembling the rhododendron, and ranging
up to 11,000 feet; dye-woods like those of Brazil and
Campeachy ; the magnificent red cedar, and orchids in
great variety. The finest of these have already been
nearly extirpated by the collectors, and are also indirectly
the cause of great havoc amongst the splendid forest
growths, that give them shelter. Mr. Albert Millican
tells us that in two months he caused the destruction of
4000 large trees in order to secure about 10,000
specimens of the superb Odonto glossum}
^ Travels and Adventures of an Orch id-Hunter.
COLOMBIA 133
Fauna
Tliere is reason to believe that some of the huge
extiuct animals — megatheriums, glyptodons, taxodons,
horses of earlier types, mastodons — which formerly
abounded in Colombia, survived till comparatively recent
times, and in any case were almost certainly associated
with primitive man. Mr. R B. "Wliite records the dis-
covery of the complete skeleton of a mastodon in the
paved stone channel of a salt -spring near Concordia,
where it had evidently been overwhelmed by an enormous
landslip. He also refers to the necklaces from Indian
graves made of the molar-fangs of mastodons, so well
preserved that they could scarcely have been the fossil
teeth of long-extinct animals dug up by the natives.^
Of the living fauna both the mammals and most of
the birds belong, like the plants, to the same genera or
species as those inhabiting the surrounding lands. Such
^ "Notes on the Aboriginal Races of the North-West Provinces of
South America," in Jour. Anthrop. Soc. (1884), p. 244.
134 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHV AND TRAVEL
are the puma, jaguar, sloth, ant-eater, tapir, peccary, apes,
king vulture, eagles, toucans, and humming-birds. Of
the last-mentioned lovely little creatures Mr. Simons
discovered as many as five distinct species on the Santa
Marta heights, and these uplands are also noted for the
prodigious multitudes of gorgeous butterflies which hover,
like iridescent clouds, above their seaward slopes. A
remarkable feature of animal life in these regions is the
curious habit of some species to confine themselves to
certain limited areas, beyond which they never range.
Thus no venomous snake is met on the slopes of the
Cordilleras above the altitude of 6000 feet, while in
some districts the swarms of mosquitoes are abruptly
arrested at a given line without any apparent reason.
Inhabitants
From the extensive surveys carried on for many years,
especially in the old gold-mining provinces, it is evident
that before the Conquest a certain measure of culture
was far more widely diffused amongst the Colombian
populations than has hitherto been supposed. But the
Chibchas alone had developed powerful political states,
and to this circumstance may be attributed the oblivion
into which other smaller but no less civilised groups
have fallen. Such were the Coconucos^ and others of tlie
Popayan district towards the Ecuador frontier, who had
made some progress in the arts under Peruvian influences,
as shown by the numerous Quichua terms in their
language. Such were also the civilised Guanos of the
Sogamoso valley, and especially the Nutahi and Tahami
nations of the present department of Antioquia, who
had in some respects surpassed the Chibchas themselves.
* Illustrated on p. 173.
COLOMBIA 135
The Cultured Peoples — The Chibchas
Of the Chibchas the proper national name appears to
nave been Muysca, literally " body-five," that is " man,"
in reference to the ten fingers and toes of the extremities
used in counting up to twenty. Hence in their vigesimal
system Muysca came also to mean twenty, that is, all the
fingers and toes of the human body. This circumstance
alone shows that they had made some intellectual pro-
gress beyond most of their neighbours, whose arithmetic
was limited to five, or even two. Although not so far
advanced as the Quichuas, they deservedly rank amongst
the cultured peoples of the New World. They con-
structed paved highways, threw light but durable sus-
pension-bridges across the river gorges, erected stone
shrines to the gods, carved their effigies also in stone,
were skilled weavers, potters, and dyers, made use of
weights and measures, and were even credited with a
currency in the form of gold discs. In any case they
excelled in the working of the precious metal, which was
both cast and wrought into all kinds of fantastic orna-
ments, dis})laying nuich imagination in the designs and
technical skill in the execution. The Chibcha territory
comprised not only the Cundinamarca plateau between
the Magdalena and the Suma Paz range, but also the
uplands of the Eastern Cordillera as far as the Sierra de
]\Ierida. But this extensive domain was divided between
two rival chiefs, the Zvpa and the Zaqiie, i.e. rulers of
the " south " and " north," who were seldom at peace,
and were lioth at last overwhelmed by the Conquistadores
while engaged in an exceptionally fierce struggle for the
supremacy over Muyscaland. The Chibcha language is
said to be extinct, and the Chibcha people, who numbered
over a million before their reduction, have long l^een
ilUXSCAS.
COLOMBIA 137
merged in the common Hispano-American nationality of
Colombia.
Throughout the whole of the cultural zone are scattered
great numbers of hitacas (guacas) or sepulchral mounds,
some of which are over 40 feet high, and often contain
great stores of gold and precious stones. These abound
especially in the auriferous Antioquia districts, where the
huaqueros, as the plunderers of the huacas are called,
have occasionally extracted treasure to the value of
several thousand pounds sterling from a single grave.
One opened about 1830 yielded £3600 worth of gems,
and Mr. White had personal knowledge of three burrows
"containing gold ornaments to the amount of £4000,
£8000, and £13,000 respectively."^
Primitive Mining Process
In this part of the country the auriferous quartz-reefs
had already been tapped by the natives in pre-Columbian
times. But the process everywhere adopted by them
was peculiar, and might be described as a method devised
to yield the least returns for the greatest expenditure of
labour. Shafts were sunk, some to a depth of 160 or
180 feet, down to the lodes, but no side galleries were
ever opened, so that when the lode where struck was
exhausted, or proved barren, another shaft was sunk a
few yards off, and so on. In the northern districts of
Antioquia the workings were very extensive, and thou-
sands of hands must have been employed upon them.
They were continued for some time after the arrival of
the whites in a more intelligent way, and Mr. E. J.
Chibas tells us that these early Spanish mines have lately
been re-discovered, and are now being worked afresh with
^ loc. cit. p. 247.
138 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
good prospects.^ All the implements used by the natives
for mining and all other purposes were of stone, except
in the Popayan district, where considerable quantities of
obsidian knives and other tools have been found. These
were supposed to have been imported from Guatemala,
and thus to prove regular intercourse with Central
America, until the obsidian was traced to the neighbouring
Purace volcano by Dr. Stlibel and Mr. White.
The Wild Tribes— The Goajiros
Elsewhere in Colombia the passage from the cultural
to the cultureless zone was as abrupt as in other parts ol'
South America. The Faezes, the Chocos with the kindred
Baudos, Tados, and Noanamas, the Catios, Cunas, and
others of the uplands, the Pacific and Caribbean coastlands,
as well as the Mitues, Bctoyes, Uitotos, Carizoncs, Miranhas,
Orejones, Piajes, and Encabellados of the inland plains,
were and mostly still are in a state of nature. Many
were undoubtedly cannibals who, like the African Mang-
battus, "fattened their captives for the table," and the
habits of some were so repulsive that the Spaniards con-
sidered themselves justified in ruthlessly exterminathig
them. Even the impartial Cieza de Leon, who often
denounces his fellow - countrymen for their atrocious
treatment of the natives, speaks with approval of the
barbarous way the savages of the Aburro valley were
disposed of. " The detestation we conceived for these
Indians was such that we hung them and their women
by their hair to the boughs of trees, and left their bodies
there, while amidst grievous moans their souls went down
to hell." Wholesale butcheries undoubtedly took place,
while hundreds of thousands were enslaved and "used
1 The Engineering Magazine, Oct. 1898.
COLOMl'.IA
139
up " in tlie service of their new masters, with the result
that the whole population, estimated by some at about
8,000,000 (probal)ly :!,000,000 in thJ thickly peopled
departments of Canca and Antioquia alone), fell soon
after the Conc[uest
to less than one
million. Many were
too paralysed to
offer any resistance,
and many more
threw themselves
over the cliffs, thus
perishing voluntar-
ily rather than fall
into the hands of
the invaders. But
some retaliated, and
in the Antioquia
district poisoned the
salt - springs so
effectually that they
remain poisoned to
this day. The
springs were covered
with the branches
of the doiicel, a kind
of " upas tree
^ r.OA.TIRO.S.
different from the
lietter known manzanillo, and the water percolating
through became so excessively poisonous " that after a
lapse of 300 years this vegetable matter still retains its
venomous properties . . . and I have seen three horses
killed in one night from drinking at one of these poisoned
springs" (White, p. 251). It may be added that when
140 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TJiAVEL
preparing a deadly virus from the blood of a species of
frog, some of the wild tribes were in the habit of trying
its efficacy on their old women.
From the charge of cannibalism and of other de-
grading practices should be exempted the Goajiros, who
gave their name to the peninsula, where they have
hitherto maintained their political independence, and
still preserve the same tribal and social institutions as
at the time of the discovery. They engage chiefly in
turtle-fishing and horse-breeding, and avoid all contact
with the outer world, except at the frontier station of
Rio Hacha, where they come to exchange the products
of the country for manufactured goods. The neighbouring
Aruacos of the Santa Marta heights appear to be also
somewhat in advance of the wild tribes, for they till the
land and raise crops of sugar, bananas, potatoes, and coca.
The present Colombian nationality results from a
fusion in varying proportions of aborigines, especially the
Chibchas, Popayans, and Antioquians, with the whites
from various parts of Spain, including a considerable
number of baptized Jews. This Semitic element appears
to be still conspicuous, especially in the department of
Antioquia, which has always been noted for the thrift
and industry of its inhabitants. Unity is imparted to
all the settled populations by the exclusive use of the
Spanish language, and by a common administration which
in recent years has shown a remarkal)le tendency towards
centralisation.
Topography
This centralising tendency is seen even in the dis-
tribution of the population, which is concentrated in
large urban centres to a much greater extent, both
relatively and absolutely, than in the neighbouring States
COLOMBIA
141
of Venezuela and Ecuador. From the subjoined table it
will be seen that, besides the capital, there are several
places with over 20,000 inhabitants, while those ex-
ceeding 5000 may be numbered by the score : —
Santa F6 cle Bogota
Medellin .
Barranquilla
Socorro
Cartagena .
Bucaramanga
Chiquinquira
Soata
Puente Nacional
Call .
Palmira
Neiva
Velez
Sogamoso .
Maiiizales .
La Mesa .
Sonson
Sanjil
Cucuta
Jiron
Pasto
Duitaraa .
Aguadas .
Rionegro .
Chief Towns of Colombia
120,000
45,000
40,000
25,000
23,000
22,000
21,000
18,000
16,000
16,000
15,000
15,000
15,000
15,000 ^
15,000 {
14,000 j
14,000 I
14,000 I
13,000 I
13,000 j
13,000
13,000
13,000
13,000
Pesca
13,000
Paipa
13,000
Buga
13,000
Ipiales
13,000
Ibague
13,000
Moiiiquira
13,000
Miraflores .
12,000
Zipaquira .
12,000
Guarno
12.000
Popayan .
10,000
Aiitioquia
10,000
Sabaiialargu
10,000
Jenezano .
10,000
Pamplona .
10,000
Espinal
10,000
Fredonia .
10,000
Yarumal .
10,000
Tunja
8,000
Carmen
8,000
Santa Marta
6,000
Savanilla .
6,000
Buenaventura
6,000
Honda
6,000
Santa F6 de Bogota, or simply Bogotd, capital of the
State, stands on a ramifying tributary of the Rio Funza,
about 12 miles south-east of BacatA, the old capital of
the southern Chibchas, from which it takes its name.
Before its destruction by the Spaniards Bacata was said
to contain 20,000 houses, and if so it must have been as
large a city as its successor now is. The new capital,
founded by Quesada soon after the Conquest on a
COLOMBIA
14:^
pleasanter and more salubrious site near the foot of the
Suraa Paz Eange, 8680 feet above sea-level, has been a
chief centre of Spanish culture throughout colonial and
later times. Besides a national university, it possesses a
valuable library of over 50,000 volumes, an observatory,
a picture gallery^ and several learned institutions. But
its prosperity ha? been greatly hampered by the lack of
MAIN STREET OF BOGOTA : LADIES WEARING MANTILLAS.
easy communications with the surrounding lands. To
remedy this defect three railway schemes have been
taken in hand, one running north to the Sogamoso con-
lluence, another north-west to the Eio Negro confluence,
and a third south-west to the Popayan district for
Ecuador. The first section of this important line is
already completed as far as Girardot on the Upper Mag-
dalena. Some distance above this place lies the riverine
144
coMPENr)iu:\r of geography and travel
station of JSleiva, founded in 1540 at the confluence of
the tributary from which it takes its name, but after its
destruction by the Indians removed 1 5 miles lower down
to a point which marks the head of the upper navigation
for small steamers.
Honda, at the rapids, where the upper navigation
MAIN KOAD, HONDA TO BOGOTA.
begins and the lower stops, was in colonial days the
central depot for distributing the Euroj^ean merchandise
forwarded from Carthagena by the ]\Iagdalena for the
Bogota and I'opayan districts. Since the construction
of the railway which turns the rapids and has its termini
at Las Yer/uas and ^Irrancapliima above and l)elow Honda,
COLOMBIA 145
this place has lost its importance. Near the source of
the Sogamoso, which traversed the territory of the
northern Chibchas, stood their capital, Hunsa, now re-
placed by Tunja, capital of the department of Boyaca.
Sogamoso, which gives its name to the river, is also a
historical place, which perpetuates the memory of the
Sogamwci, or High Priest of the Chibcha people. He
resided at Iraca, close by, where was the richest temple
in all the land, a huge wooden structure covered all over
with plates of gold, but accidentally destroyed by fire
during its sack by the Spaniards. The few days that
the conflagration lasted were extended in the popular
imagination to several years.
Iraca, holy city of the Chibchas, has in a sense been
replaced by Chiquinquira, holy city of the present
Colombians, which lies in the same fluvial basin a little
north of Lake Enqueue. Here is one of the most famous
" Miraculous Virgins " in South America, which is a
perennial source of wealth to the place, being visited in
some years by as many as 60,000 devout and generous
pilgrims. In the same romantic district, south-east of
Tunja, stands the historical town of Boyaca, also a place
venerated by all Colombian patriots, for here Bolivar
gained the decisive victory which secured the independ-
ence of the country in 1819. Other historical events
are commemorated by the flourishing city of Socorro, on
the Eio Suarez, capital of the neighbouring department
of Santander, and scene of the first revolutionary move-
ments in 1781. Ocana also, in the same district, will
always be remembered as the place where was signed the
Treaty of 1828, which dissolved the transient union of
the three allies — Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador.
But Ocana has other claims to consideration, for it
occupies a most convenient and healthy position ;3820
VOL. I L
146
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
feet above sea-level about the sources of the Catatumbo,
which affords direct access to the Maracaibo basin, and a
natural seaward outlet for the produce of the north-
eastern departments independent of the insalubrious
lowlands about the Lower Magdalena and its delta.
Barranquilla, on the chief navigable branch of the
delta, is at present the most important centre of the
GATEWAY OP" CAUTALiENA.
foreign trade of the country. It is connected, by a
railway 20 miles long, with the exposed seaport of
Savanilla, and need fear no rival except Cartagena, which
lies a little farther west on the only good natural harbour
in Colombia. In colonial times " Cartagena de las Indias "
enjoyed a complete monopoly of all commercial inter-
course with Spain, but was a sealed port for the rest of
the world, and as if to emphasise this fact, the Central
Government converted it into a fortress of immense
COLOMBIA 147
strength at an outlay of no less than £12,000,000.
Nevertheless it was nearly ruined during the siege of
1815, and, having lost its exclusive privileges with the
fall of the colonial system, has never recovered its former
prosperity. The harbour, formed by a group of islets, on
one of which stands the town, is well sheltered, and has
a depth of 60 feet, but is of difficult access. Santa
Marta, the only other seaport on the Caribbean Sea, was
founded by Quesada at the foot of the Sierra to which it
gives its name in the year 1525, and is consequently the
oldest Spanish settlement in Colombia.
On the almost uninhabited Pacific seaboard the only
outlet for trade is Buenaventura, founded in 1821 on an
islet in a deep and well-sheltered inlet a little to the
south of the San Juan estuary.
In the Cauca basin Popayan, near the source of the
main stream, about 6000 feet above sea-level, dates from
the year 1536, when it was founded by some of Belal-
cazar's people. Although a small place, it claims to be a
chief centre of modern culture, a sort of " Colombian
Athens," which, however, suffers from the want of good
communications, though standing on the old historical
route to Ecuador.
Lower down the Cauca valley several considerable
centres of population have sprung up in the mining and
agricultural districts along the main stream and some
of the lateral river valleys. Such are Call, one of the
pleasantest towns in Colombia, founded in 1536 within
60 miles of the Pacific at Buenaventura, with which
seaport it is connected by rail ; Manizales, founded
in 1848 at the junction of two main routes over
the Central Cordillera, a thriving centre of the gold and
stock-breeding industries, and already the chief trading-
place in South Antioquia; and Mcdellin, present capital
COLOMBIA 149
of the department of Antioquia, and second city in the
repubUc, situated in the rich Aborra valley 4860 feet
above the sea. Medellin has completely eclipsed the
much older city of Antioquia, which gives its name to
the whole region, and dates from the year 1541. Can-
delaria, as Medellin was at first called, was founded in
1674, but remained little more than a rural hamlet till
after the Eevolution, when it increased rapidly with the
development of mining operations. It is now the chief
centre of the gold interest, with a local mint, a depart-
mental university, and several technical schools.
On the almost uninhabitable lowlands below Antioquia
there are no towns or groups of population except a few
little riverine stations, such as MaganquS and Tacaloa,
which marks the point where the Cauca and Magdalena
converge in a common channel.
The Discovery — Conquest and Settlement
After the first survey of the seaboard, as far as the
Gulf of Darien, by Bastida and his pilot, Juan de la Cosa,
in 1496, it was again visited by Columbus in 1498.
The Pacific coast was traced by Andagoya in 1522, but
no attempt to penetrate inland was made till 1530,
when the ferocious Alfinger overran and wasted the
present departments of Magdalena and Santander. He
was soon followed by Heredia, Cesar, Vadillo, and Eobledo,
who discovered the plateaux of Antioquia and the rich
Cauca valley. Then by an extraordinary coincidence,
unique in the history of exploration and adventure, the
Chibcha plateau was simultaneously reached in 1538 by
three separate expeditions starting independently from
three opposite points — Quesada's from Santa Marta on
the coast at the foot of the Sierra, Belalcazar's from
150 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TRAVEL
Quito by the Popayan route, and Fredemann's from Core,
at the neck of the Paraguana Peninsula in the present
Venezuela. Arriving thus unexpectedly in the very
citadel of El Dorado, the leaders were at first disposed
to fall foul of each other, but more prudent counsels
prevailing, they decided at last to divide the spoils
between them. Some idea may be formed of the general
character of these pioneers from the language of an early
writer, who describes one of them as a combination of
quicksilver and lightning. Like the former, he drew to
himself all the precious metals found in the houses ; like
the latter, he destroyed the houses themselves. And
thus began the " settlement " of New Granada, as the
whole region was first called by Quesada, after his native
place in Andalusia.
Colonial Administration
This settlement brought nothing but the direst
calamities on the unhappy aborigines, who were handed
over to encomenderos, who were commissioned to exploit
land and people on behalf of the Crown and in their
own interest. These ministers of an ignoble policy
swept the helpless natives into the mines or on to the
plantations. They perished in multitudes, while the
more refractory groups were extirpated root and branch,
so that nine- tenths of the inhabitants disappeared in a
few generations.
Then came the turn of the settlers, who, whether
full-blood or half-castes, had now to submit to the narrow
system of monopolies and favouritism inspired by the
jealous policy of the mother country. The right of
trading at all became the exclusive privilege of Spaniards,
who were alone permitted to export the produce of the
COLOMBIA 151
land from Carthagena, and import such wares as Spain
could supply in exchange. This degrading system, de-
spite of occasional administrative changes, was practi-
cally maintained down to the period of the Eevolution.
The Presidency constituted in 1565 became a Vice-
royalty in 1719, on which in 1740 was conferred the
title of Nuevo Reino de Granada (New Kingdom of
Granada).
The Revolution — Present Regime
Symptoms of unrest had already made themselves felt
in 1781, when local revolts w^ere with difficulty repressed
by slight alleviations of intolerable burdens. But the
fiames of discontent extinguished in one place broke out
in another, until the whole land was enveloped in the
great conflagration which began in 1810, and was not fully
spent till 1819 under circumstances already described in
the previous chapter. The Eepublic of New Granada, as
constituted by the solution of the Triple Alliance after
the Treaty of Ocana (1828), adopted in 1861 a federal
constitution under the title of United States of New
Granada, with nine confederate States. Then, after further
vicissitudes, centralising tendencies manifested themselves,
and by the new Constitution, promulgated in 1886, the
autonomy of the nine States was abolished, and they
became simple departments of the Be^niblic of Colombia,
as it is now officially called. The former presidents are ,
merely governors of the departments directly nomin-
ated l;)y the President of the Eepublic, who is himself
chosen by electoral colleges for six years. There are
eight ministers or " secretaries " responsible to Congress,
which comprises a senate of twenty-seven members (three
for each of the nine departments), and a House of Eepre-
.^entatives, with at present sixty- six members, that is, one
152 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
for every 50,000 inhabitants, returned for four years by
universal suffrage. This last Constitution seems to have
worked fairly well till 1900, when public order was
again disturbed by a serious revolt.
Religion — Education
As in Venezuela, the religion of the State is Eoman
Catholicism, tolerance being extended to all others, so
far as they conform to the law and to the general
precepts of Christian morality. Primary education is
free but not compulsory, and provision is made for higher
instruction by a national university, four departmental
colleges, thirty-four public colleges, and fifteen normal
schools. But in 1895 the total attendance, including
primary schools, scarcely exceeded 95,000, instead of
about 300,000, which would be a fair proportion for
the whole population.
Natural Resources — Mineral Wealth
So varied and abundant are its natural resources,
both above and below ground, that, under a firm and
enlightened administration Colombia, despite the insalu-
brious climate of many districts, might soon become one
of the most prosperous regions in the world. It supplies
nearly all the platinum as well as the very finest emeralds
brought to the European market, while gold-bearing reefs
and washings occur almost everywhere, the total annual
yield being about £650,000, and the yield of gold and
silver since the discovery nearly £150,000,000. In
1891 as many as 4960 mines of all kinds were open,
including 3398, 794, and 571 of gold in the three de-
partments of Antioquia, Tolima, and Cauca respectively,
bjMBIA
!
— ,
JSf
1
SC?
COLOMBIA
/^\
COLOMBIA 153
besides 32 of emeralds, 14 of cinnabar, 7 of manganese,
and several of platinum, silver, copper, lead, mercury,
iron, coal, and salt. Extensive coalfields and reservoirs
of petroleum occur in several districts, so that few regions
can compare with Colombia for the astonishing variety
of its underground products. Scarcely less varied are
those of its forests and cultivated lands, including coffee,
cocoa, tobacco, sugar, vegetable-ivory, rubber, dye-woods,
plantains, wheat, and maize. But at present only a small
part of the country is under tillage, and the development
of its agricultural resources is greatly retarded by the
lack of good communications. In 1897 only 400 miles
of railways had been opened, and only 270 miles were
in progress, while the so-called roads are for the most
part mere mule-tracks.
CHAPTER YI
ECUADOR
Extent, Boundaries, Areas, and Populations — Relief of the Land — The
Eastern Cordillera and the Pacific Coast liange — The Avenue of
Volcanoes — Chimborazo — Tunguragna — Altar — Cotopaxi — Hydro-
graphy — The Kios Guayas and Esmeraldas — The Rio Pastasa — The
Rio Napo — Climate— Flora— Fauna— Inhabitants— The Quitus and
Caras— The Jivaros— The Zaparos— The Piojes— History— Colonial
Rule— The Republic— Topography— Resources — Land Tenure— Ad-
ministration — The Galapagos Lslands.
Extent, Boundaries, Areas, and Populations
Ecuador, smallest of the Andean republics, takes its
name from the equator, by which its northern provinces
are intersected. On the west it is limited by the Pacific
Ocean for a distance of nearly 500 miles between
Colombia and Peru, the conterminous northern and
southern states. The same states, together with Brazil,
converge and even overlap about the eastern frontiers,
where extensive tracts have formed matter of contention
between all these countries during the nineteenth century
without any prospect of immediate settlement. So vast
are these almost uninhabited tracts, that, according as the
boundaries may be eventually laid down, the superficial
area of Ecuador may vary as much as from about 100,000
to 250,000 and even 300,000 square miles. But the
ECUADOR
155
interests involved are, at least for the present, far from
commensurate with these dimensions, and the negotiations
are carried on in such a listless way that, whenever the
diplomatists happen to agree upon some knotty point,
the Congress of one or other of the litigants is sure to
reject their decision. Thus a Boundary Treaty, arranged
between Peru and Ecuador in 1890, was amended by
Peru in 1893, and revoked by Ecuador in 1894, and
since then absolutely nothing had been done down to the
close of the century to settle any one of the territorial
questions in dispute.
It may be stated in general that towards the east
Ecuador claims nothing beyond a conventional line drawn
from Tabatinga, last Brazilian station on the Solimocns
(Amazon), northwards across the lower courses of the
Putumayo, Napo, and Japura to the equator, this line,
which coincides with the meridian of 70°, 30' W. Gr.,
forming the boundary towards Brazil, and presenting two
fixed points for determining the southern and northern
frontiers towards Peru and Colombia. But, pending its
acceptance and the settlement of the other points in dis-
pute, the area of Ecuador may be taken at about 156,000
square miles, with a population of 1,450,000 distributed
over the seventeen provinces (including the Galapagos
Archipelago) as under : —
Provinces.
Area in sq. miles.
Population
(est. 1898).
Carchi
1550
36,000
Imbabura .
2500
68,000
Pichincha .
6450
205,000
Leon
2750
109,000
Tunguragua
Cliimborazo
1750
3100
103,000
122,000
Bolivar
1200
43,000
Canar (Azogues
.
1570
64,000
Carry forward
. 20,870
750,000
156
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
Provinces.
irea in sq. miles.
Population
(est. 1898).
Brought forward .
20,870
750,000
Azuay
.
4,000
132,000
Loja
3,800
66,000
Esineraldas
5,660
14,600
Manabi .
8,170
64,100
Los Rios .
2,310
32,800
Quay as .
8,500
98,100
Oro .
25
32,600
Oriente .
100,000
260,000
Galapagos
2,970
200
Tota
1
. 156,305
1,450,400
In Ecviador the proportion of full -blood and inde-
pendent aborigines is far greater than in any other
Hispano- American state, Bolivia not excepted. The
" whites," which in official language has a somewhat
elastic meaning, are "estimated" at about 100,000,
although " it is said that such a thing as a Spanish
family of perfectly pure descent is not to be found in the
country " (Whymper, p. 178). The Mestizos are reckoned
at 300,000, while all the rest are classed as "Indians."
A chief difference between the whites and Mestizos is that
the former are of Spanish speech, while many of the latter,
as well as some of the Indians, speak both their own
language and Quichua, which, in the Andean regions,
has become the lengua general, corresponding to the livgoa
gcral of Brazil.
It is also to be noticed, that a distinction is drawn
between these Quichua -speaking natives, who are also
salt-eating semi-Christians, and to whom the term "Indios"
is restricted, and the " Infieles " or " Aucas," that is, the
real wild tribes, infidels, traitors, rebels, in fact every-
thing that is bad, who eat no salt, are pagans, speak no
Quichua, and recognise no authority except that of their
own chiefs. They occupy the greater part of the
ECUADOR 157
province of Oriente, that is, about two -thirds of the
whole country, comprising the debatable lands sloping to
the Amazon, while the more or less settled populations
are mainly confined to the western uplands between the
Amazon basin and the Pacific Ocean, that is, the Ecua-
doi'ean Andes.
Relief of the Land — The Eastern Cordillera and Pacific
Coast Range
In the history of geodetic studies Ecuador holds a
somewhat eminent position. It was visited in the
eighteenth century by a party of savants — La Condaraine,
the brothers Alloa, and others — who were commissioned
by the French Academy of Sciences to measure an arc of
the meridian on this section of the Andean plateaux and
Cordilleras, which were at that time supposed to be the
highest on the globe. Besides the measurement of the
arc much other useful work was accomplished, and since
then the country has been explored by several other
distinguished men of science, notably A. von Humboldt
and Boupland early in the nineteenth century, and later
by Villavicencio, Eeiss and Stiibel, T. Wolf, and Mr. E.
Whymper.
Yet the main features of its relief are still matters of
controversy. Between the Knot of Loja towards the
Peruvian frontier, and the Knot of Pasto within the
Colombian frontier, the Andean system is commonly
supposed to develop two somewhat parallel cordilleras,
converging at both points, and thus enclosing the elevated
Ecuadorean plateau between two continuous mountain
barriers. About the existence of the eastern branch,
which is here often called the " Eoyal Cordillera," and
traverses the country for over 300 miles in the direction
158 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
from south to north, there can be no doubt. It does
not, however, form an unbroken divide between the
Pacific and Amazon basins, for it is pierced by the
head-streams of at least two of the Amazonian affluents,
the Pastasa and the Paute, rising within 35 miles of the
Pacific, far to the west of the eastern range.
The very existence of the western " parallel chain "
is denied by Mr. Whymper, who, however, admits the
presence of a parallel ridge, which he calls the " Pacific
Eange of Ecuador," a range 65 miles long by 18 to 20
wide, enclosed on the east and on the south by the
valley of the Chimbo affluent of the Kio Guayas, with a
general elevation in some places of 10,000 feet, above
which rise peaks 13,000 to 14,000, and probably even
15,000 feet high. This range, which on the Pacific side
is densely wooded up to the crests, while almost bare of
vegetation on its eastern slopes, is crossed on the route
from the coast to the interior by a pass, which at Tambo
Gobierno attains an extreme height of 10,417 feet above
sea-level, and, when seen from the upper slopes of
Chimborazo, presents a panoramic view of countless
peaks and ramifying crests — " valleys, vallons, dells, and
dales, backed by the ocean, rising above the haze which
obscures the fiat coastland " (Whymper, p. 324). It is
separated on the north by a large and deep valley from
the huge mass on which stands Chimborazo, culminating
summit of Ecuador, and would therefore appear not to
belong to the Andean system proper. At least it " lies
outside the main chain of the Andes," and " has nothing
to do with the 'two parallel cordillers'" {ib. p. 336).
At its western foot is the somewhat narrow strip of
Pacific lowlands, and on the east stretches the central
plateau of Ecuador, which is here furrowed by numerous
small river vallevs converging; towards the head of tlie
ECUADOE 159
Pdo Chimbo at an altitude of 10,000 feet, or about 1000
feet more than the mean height of the plateau. Owing
to this general elevation of the land, the numerous peaks
and cones that rise several thousand feet higher do not
present the same Alpine character that many smaller
masses do when viewed from lower levels. The trans-
verse ridges, which have been compared to the broken
rungs of a ladder disposed irregularly between the frame-
work, are nowhere seen in clear or sharp outline, and the
whole of the interior is rather hilly than mountainous,
with long stretches of moorland, and broad flat or slightly
undulating plains, the so-called " basins," such as those
of Eiobamba, Machachi, and Tumbaco.
The Avenue of Volcanoes
Thus " the two parallel Cordilleras, which, according
to geographers, are the great features of the country, do
not exist. The axis of the Andes of Ecuador, part of
the backbone of South America, runs nearly north and
south ; and towards the western edge of the main chain
there is a certain sequence of peaks more or less in a
line with each other. On the east of these summits
there is a succession of basins of different dimensions and
of various elevations, and the nearest mountains on the
eastern side occur at irregular' distances. There is no
such thing as one great valley in the interior of Ecuador "
(ib. p. 336). But if the parallel chains have thus to be
removed, the " sequence of peaks " on both sides stands
out all the more conspicuously, and constitutes that
magnificent " avenue of volcanoes " which is unrivalled
for magnitude and sublimity in the whole world. Here
are grouped as many as twenty crests and a much larger
number of peaks, cones, and domes over 15,000 feet high,
SUMMIT OF CHIMBOKAZfi.
ECUADOR
161
and consequently penetrating into the • region of eternal
snows, all rising out of or upon and above the main
chain, and all with the exception of Sara-urcit of igneous
origin. " Here are volcanoes and volcanic productions
in every stage. Innnense plains of volcanic sand,
mountains and vales of tuff and scoriae — in some of the
lower strata of which are embedded numerous animal
remains of the Quaternary period — streams of lava, fields
of pumice, and the great cones themselves ; some extinct,
others smoking and dormant, and one [two] Sangai [and
Cotopaxi] in unceasing activity, all ready to break out
again and devastate the county around them, as they
have so often done before." ^
Subjoined is a table of some of the higher summits in
the western and the eastern ranges, with their heights,
as determined by MM. Eeiss and Sttibel and Mr.
"Whymper : —
Western Summits.
Eastern Summits.
H
eight ill ft.
Heiglit in ft.
Chimborazo
•20,498
Cotopaxi .
19,613
Illiniza
17,405
Cayanibe .
19,186
Carihuairazo
16,515
Antisana .
19,385
Cotocachi .
16,301
Altar
17,730
Corazon .
15,871
Sangay .
17,464
Guagua-Pichincha
15,918
Tunguragua
16,690
liucu-Pichincha
15,542
Sincholagua
16,365
Kuminagui
15,607
Sara-urcu .
15,749
Mojanda .
11,088
Chiml
Imbabura .
)orazo
15,033
Although lying on or about the equator, several of
these giants are not only snow-clad, but also scored by
glaciers, which feed numerous torrents tumbling down to
the plains. Such are Cayambe, Cotopaxi, and especially
^ Alfred Siinson, Travels m the IVilds of Ecuador, p. 43.
VOL. I M
162 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGltAPHY AND TRAVEL
Chimborazo, first ascended in 1879 by Whymper, who
found that glaciers are discharged by all the upper
combes encircling the ice -capped cratar. Others have
even in recent times been the theatre of tremendous
convulsions, such as that of 1868, when whole towns
and villages were levelled with the ground, and 50,000
persons perished in the Cotocachi and Imbabura districts.
In 1896 the towns of Montecristi, Portoviejo, and Jipi-
japa were destroyed by an earthquake, the effects of
which were felt over an area estimated by Mr, Dolby
Tyler at 55,000 square miles in extent.^
Tunguragua — Altar
Conspicuous amongst the snowy cones of the eastern
range are the wooded Tunguragua and Capac-uru, " King
of Mountains," the Altar of the Spaniards, wliich fourteen
years before the conquest was said to be still somewhat
higher than Chimborazo. But it has since collapsed, and
now presents the appearance of a superb jagged and
rocky crown, whose dark-blue barrancas, that is, rents or
fissures in its snowy mantle, offer a spectacle the eye is
never wearied of gazing upon.
South of Altar rises the ever restless Sangay, and
away to the north the superb Antisana, at whose foot is
the hacienda or wayside inn immortalised by Humboldt's
visit, at an altitude of 13,300 feet above sea-level, that
is to say, over 1000 feet higher than the Peak of
Teneriffe. This hacienda, however, is not, as is often
stated, the highest abode of man in South America, the
Bolivian mining town of Potosi standing about 20 feet
higher.
1 Geogr. Jour. (1896), vol. ii. p. 178-
ECUADOH 16;3
Cotopaxi
On the eastern horizon over against Illiniza towers
the majestic Cotopaxi, which is without a rival amongst
the active volcanoes of the Old World. In the perfect
symmetry of its outlines Cotopaxi is unsurpassed not
only by any South American volcano, but has elsewhere
no equal except perhaps Fuji-yama in Japan. " It is
turned as if with the lathe," said the natives to Humboldt,
while Orton describes it as a huge cone rising out of the
valley, its sides deeply furrowed by the torrents of slush
which have so often been vomited from the crater. The
cone itself is about 6000 feet high, its eastern side being
snow-clad, while its western is nearly bare, a contrast due
to the Atlantic trade -winds which, sweeping up the
Amazons valley, deposit their moisture in the form of
snow on the slopes facing eastwards.
Cotopaxi was for the first time scaled in 1880 right
up to the crater by Mr. Whymper, who, contrary to
Halls' experience, found that much of the ascent was a
mere walk, no climbing being necessary. He describes
the crater as. an amphitheatre 2300 feet from north to
south and 1650 from east to west, with a rugged crest
surrounded by overhanging cliffs, some snow-clad, others
apparently encrusted with sulphur. " Cavernous recesses
belched forth smoke, the sides of the cracks and chasms
no more than half-w^ay down shone with ruddy light, and
so it continued on all sides right down to the bottom,
precipice alternating with slope, and the fiery fissures
becoming more numerous as the bottom was approached.
At the bottom, probably 1200 feet below us, there was
a ruddy circular spot, about one-tenth of the diameter of
the crater, the pipe of the volcano, its channel of com-
munication with lower regions, filled with incandescent
ECUADOR 165
if not molten lava, glowing and burning, with flames
travelling to and fro over its surface, and scintillations
scattering as from a wood -fire, lighted by tongues of
flickering flame which issued from the cracks in the
surrounding slopes" {op. cit. p. 153).
Steam undoubtedly plays a large part in the con-
vulsions of Cotopaxi, and the quantity emitted is occa-
sionally prodigious. From the slopes of Cayambe, at a
distance of about 60 miles to the north-east, Mr.
Whymper saw a volume of steam ejected, which formed
" a continuous body of not less than sixty cubic miles of
cloud. If this vast volume, instead of issuing from a
free vent, had found its passage barred, Cotopaxi on that
morning might have been effaced, and the whole continent
might have quivered under an explosion rivalling or
surpassing the mighty catastrophe at Krakatoa." Heaps
of ruins, piled up during the lapse of ages, are scattered
for miles round the base of the mountain, among them
great boulders 20 feet square. Cotopaxi is the great
pumice-producing volcano. The new road up the valley
cuts through a lofty hill formed by the successive erup-
tions ; and the section, presenting alternate layers of
mud, ashes, and pumice, is a geological record of the
volcano.
Hydrography— The Rios Guayas and Esmeraldas
If, as is generally supposed, the basins of the central
plateau were formerly a group of upland lakes at varying
altitudes, their contents have long been discharged
through the streams flowing east to the Amazon and
west to the Pacific. The Pacific drainage is effected
by several rivers whose basins lie all witliin the territory
of the republic, but of which two only — Guayas and
Esmeraldas — are of any importance.
166 COMrENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
The Guayas, which collects the surface-waters of an
area estimated at about 14,000 square miles, is formed
by the convergence of a large number of head-streams,
such as the Chimho or YaguacM, which sweeps round
from the eastern slopes of the Pacific range ; the Daule,
which winds through the flat marshy tracts on the right
bank ; and the Babahoyo, which rises in the Pacific range,
and is regarded as the true upper course. Below Bodegas,
the " stores," that is, the depot for goods in transit and
landing-stage for travellers mounting to the plateau, the
main stream expands to a breadth of half a mile, and
at Guayaquil, a little lower down, merges in an estuary,
which is the largest inlet on the west coast of South
America. The Guayas, which is navigable for large
steamers as far as Bodegas, swarms with alligators, and
Mr. Simson tells us that he counted as many as five
hundred basking in the sun on a sandbauk exposed at
low water. The river is of vital importance to Ecuador,
its valley, rough as it is, being almost the only route
which gives access to the Pacific coast.
The Esmeraldas, whose upper course is the Gtialla-
bamha, traverses the plain of Quito in a north-westerly
direction to the little seaport of Esmeraldas below the
Colombian frontier, and is also navigaljle for a short
distance. Its basin has an area of nearly 9000 square
miles, but this route is little used, the country being
mostly uninhabited, and the fiuvial valley obstructed by
a tremendous gorge 2000 feet deep at the base of the
Mqjanda volcano.
The Rio Pastasa
That section of the Amazon, which receives contribu-
tions from the Ecuadorean uplands, flows normally in an
easterly direction as far as Tabatinga un the Brazilian
ECUADOR 167
frontier, and might well serve as a convenient boundary
between Ecuador and Peru. Besides the already men-
tioned Paute, the affluents of this section which traverse
Ecuadorean territory are the Pastasa and the Napo, both
rising on the plateau, and about midway between these
two the Tigre, which has its source on the advanced
out-runners of the Eoyal Cordillera. All three have a
nearly parallel south-easterly trend, and all flow for
most of their course through the wilds of the province
of Oriente, which are still mainly occupied by independent
native tribes classed in Ecuador as " Infieles " or " Aucas."
The Pastasa is formed by the junction of the Patate from
the northern plateau and of the Chamho, which has its
source on the high land of Alausi, and after a winding
course along the western slopes of Sangay and Altar
bends round the base of Tunguragua to the confluence
just above Baiios. From this point the Pastasa flows
through a deep valley with steep sides, down which rush
the Topo, Zitinag, Bio Verde, Bohonaza, and several othei'
torrents descending from the Llanganati heights to the
left bank. The Pastasa strikes the north bank of the
Maranon, as the Amazon is here called, some miles above
the confluence of the Huallaga from Peru, and over 3000
miles from the Atlantic.
The Rio Napo
North of the Bobonaza all the streams having their
source in the Ecuadorean Andes converge to form the
Napo, which may almost take rank with the great
affluents of the Amazon. The chief headwaters of the
main stream, which springs from the eastern slope of
Cotopaxi, are the Curarai, draining the northern slopes
of Llanganati; the Coca, rising between Antisana and
168 COMI'EXDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
Cayainbi : and the Aguarico, descending from the north-
eastern Hanks of Cayainbi. From its source to the
contluence of the Coca, ahnost as large as the main river,
the Napo runs in a rough stony bed at a steep incline ;
but beyond its junction with the Aguarico on the left
and the Curarai on the right, it flows in a smoother but
still rapid current between low wooded banks, and after
a course of 7 5 miles is lost in the waters of the Amazon
500 miles below the Pastasa continence. Here the
Napo is broader than the Thames at London Bridge, and
from its mouth to the Curarai junction presents for
several hundred miles an easy navigable waterway
through the province of Oriente.
Beyond the Xapo follows the Futumayo, the Iqa of
the Brazilians, which, however, rises in Colombia and has
its outflow at S. Antonio in Brazil, while no part of its
course lies in undisputed Ecuadorean territory. The
whole region traversed by these western tributaries of
the Amazon forms a continuation of the southern wood-
lands, which in Peru take the name of la montafia. But
the Ecuadorean montana is more abundantly watered,
for the climate is one of excessive humidity and con-
tinuous rainfall, rendering the few forest tracks often as
impassable as treacherous quagmires. Here the trees
grow to a greater height than on the lower Amazonian
plains, and shoot up perfectly straight from the saturated
soil. Their shady branches are draped with long hoary
mosses and festooned with orchids and other parasitic
plants.
Climate
The succession of vertically superimposed climatic
zones, common to all the western uplands, is greatly
modified in Ecuador by the local conditions. In deter-
ECUADOR 169
mining the general distribvition of heat and moisture the
chief factors are the position of this section of the Andes
and their eastern slopes in respect of the Amazon valley,
and the main trend of the Eoyal Cordillera at right
angles with that valley.
The whole of the montana, that is, the province of
Oriente, together with the eastern slopes of the Cordillera,
comes within the direct influence of the heavily-laden
clouds rolling up from the Atlantic with the perennial
trade-winds. Much of the humidity is discharged on the
Amazonian plains themselves ; but enough remains not
only to keep the montana in a perpetual state of satura-
tion, but also to reach the plateau, where it is precipitated
in the form of snow on all the higher crests, and as rain
lower down the eastern slopes of the Cordillera. The
summits of the great volcanoes are wrapt in dense fog
for months together, and travellers, after long waiting
for a glimpse of their glittering cones, are told that thus
they live year in year out.
On the Pacific slope the rainfall, nowhere heavy,
decreases normally in the direction from north to south,
so that the southern districts about the Guayas estuary,
and the island of Puna at its entrance, come almost within
the Peruvian rainless zone, and may in any case be
described as arid. But here as on the montana the
heats are tropical, with a mean temperature of 79° to
82° Pahr., while on the plateau, as at Quito, Cuenca, and
Ptiobamba, it falls to 58° and even 56° Fahr. The
plateau, being mostly sheltered by the encircling ranges,
is also much drier than the montana, and even at Quito,
which receives some moisture through the Esmeraldas
rift from the Pacific, the annual rainfall averages not
more than 47 inches.
It results from these general remarks that, apart
170 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
from the Alpine heights and the more elevated wintery
paramos, there are in Ecuador three tolerably well-defined
climatic zones, corresponding to the three physical zones
— the montana, essentially tropical, that is, hot and
moist ; the platean, temperate with moderate heat and
rainfall ; and the seaboard, hot and dry. It follows also
that the normal succession of the two seasons — dry
from about June to January, and wet for the rest of the
year — -is less clearly marked in Ecuador than in most
other tropical regions. On the plateau great perturba-
tions are caused by the large number of snowy mountains,"
while on the eastern slopes there is no succession at all.
Here, say the natives, " it rains thirteen months in the
year."
Flora
Thanks to this superabundance of moisture, the
mhanas, that is, the open dry tracts, answering to the
Venezuelan llanos, are confined in Ecuador to the western
lowlands, where they alternate with artificial clearings
for the cultivation of coca, cotton, fruits, and sugar. In the
vast province of Oriente " all is covered by the same
dense, impenetrable forest, where the vegetable kingdom
truly lives a life of struggle for existence, the fittest
living and thriving upon the death and decay of the
weaker " (Simson). But forest growths are by no means
confined to the montana, and extensive wooded tracts
occur on the eastern flanks of the Cordillera, on the west
side of the Pacific range and in the Plsmeraldas basin.
The route from Guayaquil to Quito leads over the spurs
of Chimborazo through sublime mountain scenery and
verdant river valleys, amongst which that of the Chimbo
is especially celebrated. At this elevation the cultivation
of wheat supplants that of the sugar-cane, while cacao
ECUADOR 171
and orange groves have given place, the one to barley,
the other to clover -fields, lucerne, maize, and beans.
Guaranda, at an altitude of 8840 feet, is the centre of
the Peruvian bark trade, vi^hich, however, will here soon
be a thing of the past, as the trees are being rapidly
destroyed by the wasteful way of obtaining the bark.
That of the much -prized Cinchona calisaya is now no
longer to be had, that of C. siicciruhra being alone pro-
curable. This is a majestic tree, growing to a height of
50 or even 60 feet, clothed with bright dark-green oval
leaves, and bearing a white flower with an aromatic
fragrance A fresh stem 5 feet in girth yields 1500 lbs.
of red bark, which, however, during the drying process is
reduced to 800 lbs.
But the most valuable plant in Ecuador is the cacao
tree {Theolroma cacao), which thrives best on the hot
moist lowlands beneath the shade of taller growths.
Hence the low-lying districts of this region are admirably
suited for its cultivation, which has become one of the
chief industries of the inhabitants. Here the white
species, which is the best, still runs wild, and is peculiar
to Ecuador.
Fauna
In Ecuador are represented all the large fauna of the
neighbouring regions. Even the llama ranges as far
north as the Eiobamba district, beyond which it is re-
placed by the mule as a pack-animal. As in Colombia,
a peculiarity of the local fauna, and especially of the
birds and insects, is the curious tendency of certain
species to confine themselves to small areas. Like the
Sierra de Santa ]\Iarta, several of the Great Andes mio;ht
in this respect be described as little independent zoological
kingdoms. Such are Antisana, which has a species of
172 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
ibis {Thcristiciis caudatus) unknown elsewhere; Chimborazo
and Pichincha, each with a peculiar variety of the
humming-bird occurring at an altitude of over 14,000
feet, while on Pichincha Mr. AVhymper also discovered
eight absolutely new species of beetles, Ecuador is
extremely rich in these insects, of which as many as
8000 species have been recorded.
In the eastern woodlands is heard the soft musical
note of the Jlautero or " flute-bird," which is a constant
surprise and delight to travellers in the province of
Oriente. " His song is not quite the same in all in-
dividuals, but may be likened in tone to the most mellow,
sweet-sounding flute ; and the musical correctness of all
his notes is astonishing. He is a very insignificant-
looking, little grayish-coloured bird ; and, I was informed,
always dies in captivity" (Simson, p. 84).
These eastern forests, which are continuous with those
of the Amazonian plains, afford cover to numberless
tapirs, jaguars, pumas, peccaries, venomous snakes in
endless variety, bloodthirsty insect pests, such as
mosquitoes, the red tick, the horrible pium fly, and,
perhaps the greatest plague of all, true vampires in great
variety and abundance. Some of the popular stories
connected with these repulsive winged mammals may be
too highly coloured, but there is no longer any doubt as
to their blood-sucking propensities. " The depredations
of these bloodthirsty imps fall heaviest upon children,
whose blood they seem to have a special liking for. I
have seen a little Zaparo child at Aguano perfectly pale,
ansemic, and debilitated by constant loss of blood from
the head and feet ; and was told of more than one case
of children entirely succumbing to the attacks of vampires.
By the foregoing it will be seen that the depredations of
the vampire are not a mere 'myth of imaginative
ECUADOR
173
travellers/ as Professor Orton, in The Andes and the
Amazons, describes them" {ih. p. 13o).
Inhabitants — The Quitus and Caras
With Ecuador we enter the domain of the Quichua
race, which was already in possession of the northern
COCONUCO INDIAN OF COTOCACHI, ECL'ADOR.
(See the description of this tribe on p. 134.)
coastlands and of the plateau long before the conquest of
the country, begun by the Inca Tupac -Yupanqui, and
completed by his son Huayna-Capac. "Whether the
Quitus, that is, the earliest known inhabitants of the
ancient kingdom of Quitu (Quito), were a brancli of the
Quichua race, is doubtful. But to this connection almost
174 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
certainly belonged the Cava {Caran) people, who over-
threw Quitu, last king of the prehistoric dynasty, from
whom the Quitus and their capital were afterwards
named.
The Caras came traditionally on rafts (balsas), ap-
parently from Peru, formed settlements on the coast
below the Eio Esmeraldas, and thence ascending to the
plateau conquered the kingdom of Quitu. Here they
established the pre-Inca dynasty of the so-called Shyris,
the last of whom, fifteenth in succession from the founder,
fell on the battlefield of Hatuntaqui in 1487, when the
whole region became an integral part of the Peruvian
Empire. Its fusion in the political system of the Incas
was all the more easily effected since the Caras were an
allied race, who spoke a dialect of the Quichua language,
which is still the common speech of a great part of the
inhabitants of the plateau and Pacific seaboard.
The Caras and nearly all the other aborigines of the
uplands have long been merged in the general Mestizo
population, in which the Spanish element is but slightly
represented. Hence the Quitenos, as the inhabitants of
the plateau are often called in a collective sense, reflect
in their daily life and social habits the old Quichuan
culture almost more than that grafted upon it by the
Spaniards. Indeed, some of their customs are quite
barbarous, and are a source of constant amazement to
strangers passing through the country. It is curious to
read of the capital of a " civilised " state being dependent
for its supply of water on the public fountains, and their
basins contaminated by all sorts of abominations, while
the over- fastidious have twopenny worth brought every
.morning several miles in large pots. The houses of Quito
are also destitute of hearths and chimneys, and the same
primitive conditions characterise all religious and com-
ECUADOJi
175
inerciiil uffairs. Under ati outward show of Christianity
the old pagan notions still persist, and in the altar-pieces
representing St. Michael vanquishing the devil, every-
where a favourite motive, both Archangel and draoion are
worshipped with equal fervour.
In the religious processions scenes are witnessed
WATF.n-nAKRIEUS OF QUITO, FX'UADOR.
which almost recall the ceremonies preceding the
sanguinary rites of the old Aztec teocalli. These pro-
cessions are followed not only by dancers, mimes, and
masqueraders, but also by the so-called chacatascas or
public penitents, who, like the flagellants of the ]\Iiddle
176 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TPAVEL
Ages and the Indian fakirs, lacerate their half- naked
bodies with an endless variety of self-inflicted tortures.
The Jivaros
In the province of Oriente much the same ethical
relations prevail as in most other unreclaimed Amazonian
lands. Here the Indios, or Christian natives, are not
numerous, being chiefly represented by the Qujos or
Canelos, settled about the missions of the Upper Napo
and its headwaters. All the rest — Jivaros of the Pastasa,
Zcqjaros of the Napo and its southern affluents, Piojes of
the Aguarico, Middle N"apo, and Putumayo, Iquitos and
Mazanes of the Tigre, Nanai, and Lower Napo — are still
" Aucas " or " Infieles," rude wild tribes at various stages
of savagery, just as at the time of the discovery.
Some of the Jivaros, who formerly ranged west to the
Paute, were converted and even reduced by the Spaniards,
who founded settlements in their midst. But in 1599
they all rose in a body and destroyed all these settle-
ments in one day. The Jivaros are a brave, freedom-
loving people, who can endure no servitude, but are
advanced enough to till the land and raise crops of maize,
beans, yucas, and plaintains, while the women are expert
weavers. Like the negroes of West Africa, they have a
drum-language, and in every village there is a tunduli or
great drum, which summons to arms, and issues other
signals, rapidly propagated far and wide. They also preserve
the scalp of the enemy, removing it in one piece from
the neck upwards, and drying it with hot stones in such
a way that the skin shrinks to about the size of a Jaffa
orange, while retaining the features of the victim. They
are very proud of these ghastly trophies, specimens of
which may be seen in several European museums.
ECUADOK 177
The Zaparos
In the ISTapo basin the dominant people are the
Zaparos, who occupy a territory about the size of Wales
between the Napo and the Pastasa. They are very
numerous, or, at least, are broken into numerous sub-
groups, of which as many as thirteen are mentioned by
C. D. Taylor. Of these some, especially the Ahuishiris,
are fierce, irreclaimable savages, while others, perhaps the
majority, have the reputation of being gentle, hospitable,
and well disposed towards Europeans, although living in
a state of constant feud among themselves. Like the
Guarani, to whom they may possibly be remotely allied,
they have a Mongolic expression, with small slant eyes,
thick flat nose, thick lips, and round, beardless face.
Amongst the Zaparos an echo would appear to survive
of the Shamanistic religion so widely diffused over North
America and Siberia. Like the shaman of the Tunguses,
their shimanu is a true mediator between the good and
•evil spirits, with whom they hold commune during
delirious trances brought on by drinking the ayaliucisca
or divining liquor. They also perform conjuring tricks,
and, like the Australian medicine men, extract the darts
which some enemy is supposed to have stuck into the
body of people suffering from any pain or ailment. But
Mr. Simson does not think they are imposters, but rather,
by constant repetition, come to acquire a kind of super-
stitious belief in their own deceptive practices.
The Piojes
On the Kapo and its Aguarico affluent also dwell the
Piojes, who are akin to the Macaguajes of the Putumayo.
Although classed as Aucas, those who come in contact
VOL. I N
178 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
with traders disclaim the title, and call themselves
Christians, meaning, jjerhaps, civilised or settled, and not
merely wild tribes like their Zaparo neighbours. From
these they differ greatly in dress, arms, and many
customs, and are certainly far more civilised, as they not
only cultivate the soil, growing large crops of cassava and
plaintains, but also own a large breed of dogs well trained
for the hunt. From the poisonous species of mandioca
they prepare the so-called cassava, a dry cake somewhat
like the unleavened bread of the Jews, which has the
great advantage of keeping well for a long time in their
moist climate. These peaceful, industrious natives are
exposed to the attacks of the savage Ahuishiris, and also
suffer occasionally at the hands of lawless white traders,
although well disposed towards all strangers.
History — Colonial Rule
After the conquest of the country by the Incas (see
above) Quitu was not reduced to a mere dependency or
outlying province of the Peruvian empire, but the old
kingdom was reconstituted as a separate state, inde-
pendent of, and at times even hostile to the central
government. Indeed, one of the immediate causes of the
downfall of the Incas was the rivalry of the two states,
which had been engaged in open warfare just before the
Conquistadores arrived on the scene, and almost at a
single stroke destroyed both branches of the old dynasty
of the Incas.
On the death of the last of the Shyri rulers, Huayna-
Capac is said to have arrested further resistance by marry-
ing that monarch's daughter. Pacha, and taking up his
residence in Quitu. Moreover, he destroyed the unity of
the empire by leaving Cuzco (Peru) to the legitimate heir,
ECUADOR 179
Huascar, and Quitu (Ecuador) to Pacha's son, Atahualpa
The two half-brothers soon fell out, and Atahualpa had
just defeated and captured Huascar when he was him-
self treacherously seized and put to death by Pizarro
(1532).
The transition from native to Spanish rule was
marked by the foundation of the present city of Quito by
Belalcazar in 1534. But the first governor of the
province was Gonzalo Pizarro, appointed in 1540 by his
brother Francisco shortly before his assassination. After
Gonzalo's execution in 1550 the province of Quito
became a Presidency under the viceroys of Peru, and,
except for a short interval when it was transferred to
Bogota (1710-22), remained an administrative de-
pendency of Peru during the Colonial period. Under
the oppressive Spanish rule, the chief event was the
terrible earthquake of 1797, which rent the continent
from Cuzco and Panama, and in a few seconds destroyed
40,000 persons in Quito alone.
The Republic
The people were unprepared for self-government when
Ecuador was constituted an independent state. The new
republic was, however, governed well during the first
fifteen years of its existence, under the able administra-
tions of General Elores and of the accomplished scholar
and statesman, Vicente Eocapuarta. There were troubles
during some of the succeeding years, until General Elores
returned in 1860. Under Garcia Moreno the priests
obtained undue influence for fifteen years. For the last
ten years Antonio Elores, son of the General, and Lewis
Cordero have served their regular terms, and Don Eloy
Alfaro has been President since 1896,
ISO COMPENDIUxM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TEAVEL
Topography
In Ecuador the urban groups are all concentrated on
the plateau, and along the main route leading from the
coast to the interior. Despite earthquakes and political
disorders Quito, the capital of the State, has a population
estimated at about 80,000, but according to Whymper
not more than 35,000, mostly Mestizos, with a few
whites, and in the suburbs a considerable number of pure
Indians. It stands at an altitude of 9343 feet, near the
source of the Esmeraldas, under the shadow of Pichincha.
It is laid out in the form of a perfect square, with a few
straggling environs, and may feel prouder of its fine
Eenaissance churches than of its ill -paved streets. A
great part of the city is covered with churches and
convents, which contrast strangely with the mean and
dilapidated appearance of most of the houses. One of
the chief local industries is the execution of oil-paintings,
mostly religious subjects, which are largely exported to the
surrounding countries. Another speciality are the dried
skins of birds, especially those of humming-birds, brought
in from all parts, but chiefly by the Indians from the
river Napo. The Indians also bring to Quito the well-
known vegetable -ivory nuts, which are carved by the
local artists into rude little figures, painted in Ijright
colours, and sold to the country people.
From Quito the main route leads between tlie Avenue
of Volcanoes southwards to all the large towns on the
plateau — Latacunga and Amhato, not far from Chimborazo,
each with about 10,000 inhabitants; Riohamha, near the
source of the Pastasa, west of Altar ; Alausi, south-west
of Sangai ; Citenca, far to the south in the upper Paute
basin ; and Loja in the same basin, but much nearer the
Peruvian frontier. Cuenca may have a population of
ECUADOK
181
25,000 and Eiobamba of 1L>,000, while that of all the
others falls probably below 10,000. They stand at
elevations ranging from about 8500 to a little over 9000
feet, and with their low cheerless houses, dusty or else
muddy streets, and unlovable surroundings, present the
same general aspect of hopeless dreariness.
But noble buildings, spacious thoroughfares, and other
civic attractions can scarcely be looked for in an im-
GUAYAQUIL.
poverished land, where whole cities may at any moment
be buried beneath a treacherous soil, or overwhelmed by
some sudden display of volcanic energy. Such was the
fate of Cacha near Eiobamba, which, with its 5000
inhabitants, was swallowed up in 1640 in a still yawning
chasm. Eiobamba itself was destroyed in 1797, and
has been rebuilt on a new site less exposed to such
disasters.
Perhaps the largest and almost the most important
place in the whole country is the seaport of Guayaquil,
182 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
at the head of the Guayas estuary, where is centred
nearly all the foreign trade of Ecuador. It was founded
by Belalcazar in 1535 near the old Indian city of Culenta,
with which it was connected across swamps and back-
waters by a causeway nearly half a mile long. Duran,
opposite Guayaquil, which has a reputed population of
50,000, is the seaward terminus of the only railway in
the country. It was begun many years ago to connect
the plateau with the sea-coast, but only about 60 miles
have yet been completed, that is the section running from
Cliitiibo to Duran. Guayaquil is accessible at low water
only to small vessels, and those of heavy draught have to
ride at anchor lower down the estuary. Harbour works
are much needed to improve the approaches ; but these,
like the railways and the highways, for the most part
mere bridle-paths, still await the advent of a firm and
enlightened administration to introduce the practical
measures required to open up the resources of the country.
Eesources — Land Tenure
These resources, if inferior to those of Peru and
Colombia, are by no means despicable. The emeralds,
which gave their name to the Esmeraldas river, are no
longer found. But the profitable gold-washings in this
wonderfully fertile low-lying Esmeraldas valley are proof
enough of the presence of rich auriferous quartz-reefs on
the uplands. At present the only mine actually open is
that of Zaruma, although the washings yield gold-dust in
the proportion of about two shillings of every cubic metre
dealt with.
Agriculture is in a rudimentary state ; there are no
ploughs anywhere to be seen, and in some districts the
corn is still thrashed by the primitive process of " sabot-
ECUADOR 183
dancing." Hence it is not surprising that a land, which
might yield enough for the wants of twenty times the
present population, is still largely dependent on California
and Chili for its supply of wheat and flour.
This backward state of the agricultural interests is no
doubt partly due to the constant political ferment which
drives off capital, but also in great measure to the feudal
system of land tenure. The whole country belongs to a
few absentee owners, whose estates are often of boundless
extent. Thus one great lord owns the whole of Cayambe,
with Sara-Urcu and all the intervening plains and valleys.
Another is master of Antisana with all its farmsteads,
pastures, and live-stock, and he is himself ignorant of the
extent of his domain, which stretches for an unknown
distance eastwards in the direction of the Amazon.
Administration
The republic is constituted much in the same way
as that of Colombia, with a centralised authority, and
provinces administered by governors, who are appointed
by and are directly responsible to the State. By the Con-
stitution of 1884, modified in 1887, the President and
the Vice-President are Ijoth elected by the people for
four years, and perform their functions through a Cabinet
of five ministers, who, as well as the President, may be
impeached by Congress. This legislative assembly con-
sists of a Senate with two members for each province
chosen for four years, and a Chamber of Deputies chosen
for two years in the proportion of one for every 30,000
inhabitants. The franchise is limited to adults who can
read and write, and are Eoman Catholics.
Not only is the Catholic the State religion, but 210
other cult is tolerated. Primary instruction is both free
184 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
and obligatory, and for the higher education there are
three Universities, those of Quito, Cuenca, and Guayaquil,
besides nine High and thirty-five Secondary Schools. In
1899 the total attendance was about 70,000, the in-
struction imparted being strictly " orthodox."
The Galapagos Islands
This interesting group of islands belongs politically to
Ecuador, but being almost destitute of inhabitants, is
administered as a " territory." It lies due west of Quito,
being crossed towards the north by the equator, and
consists of nine or ten islands of varying size, but all of
volcanic origin. The surface is generally bare and arid,
although a few cone-shaped hills, ranging from 1600 to
about 3600 feet, are covered with grass, thanks to the
mists in which they are generally wrapped. The chief
members of the Archipelago are Albemarle, the largest
(1710 square miles), Chatham, Narborough, Indefatigable,
James, Hood, and Charles I. or Floreana, with a total
area of 3170 square miles, and a population of less than
300, mostly concentrated in Chatham. When discovered
by Tomas de Berlanga in 1535 the group was found to
be uninhabited, but was afterwards resorted to by buc-
caneers, whalers, and even a few settlers from Ecuador.
The cotton, tobacco, fig, orange, plum, and other plants
introduced by these colonists now run wild, as do also
the cattle, horses, asses, pigs, cats, dogs, goats, and
poultry.
But for zoologists the chief interest attaches to the
indigenous animals — birds and reptiles — which when
examined by Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle
were found to be distinct species unknown elsewhere.
Of the twenty-five kinds of land birds described by the
To face page 184.
Sianfordls Geod^ ^stab'^ Icjndm.
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EC UADOR
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ECUADOK 185
great naturalist (the number has since been increased by
further research) all but one proved to be peculiar to the
group. Many of these were finches with remarkably
broad beaks. Peculiar also were a remarkable species of
turtle, a gigantic tortoise, two strange kinds of lizards,
and some snakes. The nearest allied forms occur, as
might be expected, in South America, from which the
nearest islands are distant only 140 miles.
A remarkable circumstance . connected with this
isolated fauna is the restricted area of some of the
forms, the finches, for instance, of one island being re-
presented by allied but quite distinct species on another.
In seeking for an explanation of these phenomena, the
important fact was noticed that the islands containing
such distinct species were separated from each other by
deep channels with strong currents. The islands, being
volcanic and rising abruptly from the abyss, must have
been separately upheaved by submarine forces, and could
never have since been closely connected either with their
neighbours or with the adjacent Continent. They were
peopled by their present species at a period sufficiently
remote to allow time for much variation in the characters
of the different forms. This isolated development in
separate areas was one of those striking facts, which
ultimately led to the Darwinian doctrine of the origin of
species, and generally to the establishment of modern
evolutionary teachings. It became obvious to the
meanest understanding that such isolated forms, in small
areas of relatively late igneous origin, could not have
been specially created, but were slowly modified by
natural selection and gradual adaptation to their new
environment.
CHAPTEK VII
PERU
Extent, Area, Population— Physical Features : Plateaux and Cordilleras
—The Negra and Blanca Kanges— The Cerro de Pasco and Carabaya
Range— The Volcanic Zone: Misti— Ornate— Tutupaca— Underground
Agencies — Thermal Waters — Varied Scenery — Local Terminology-
Hydrography — The Amazon System — The Maranon and
Putumayo— The Ucayali System— The Huallaga and Javari— Pacific
Drainage — Lacustrine Basins — Lake Titicaca — Climate — Flora-
Fauna— Inhabitants— The Cultured Peoples— The Yuncas — The
Aymaras— The Quichuas— Empire of the Incas— The Uncultured
Peoples- The Antis — Tlie Chunchos— Topography— Railway Enter-
prise — Natural Resources : Vegetable Products ; Guano ; Minerals —
Causes and Results of the Chilian War— The Peruvian Corijoration—
Administration.
Extent, Area, Population
In colonial times the Vice-royalty of Peru, so named
from an obscure coast-stream the very existence of which
has since been questioned, comprised by far the larger
part of Spanish South America. But the long wars of
independence, in which several of its dependencies
played their own part, were followed by a more or less
voluntary dismemberment of this vast domain, leaving
to the central or Peruvian section a territory of about
half a million square miles. Since then this area has
been further reduced by readjustments of frontiers, and
especially by the permanent cession of some 20,000
PERU
187
square miles to Chile after the disastrous war of 1879-81.
Besides this loss of the provice of Tarapaca, the two
provinces of Tacna and Arica were also ceded for a
period of twelve years, on the understanding that their
future position should then be decided by a vote of the
inhabitants themselves. For various reasons the decision
was deferred till the year 1898, when a convention
for the purpose of carrying out the plebiscite was
signed at Santiago. Pending the settlement of the
boundary questions with Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil,
involving perhaps over 200,000 square miles of un-
developed forest tracts, the present area of the republic
within its recognised limits exceeds 460,000 square
miles, with a coast-line of about 1200 miles running from
the Arica bend in a north-westerly direction to the
Guayaquil estuary. Landwards its territory is conter-
minous on the north with Ecuador and Colombia, on the
north-east with Brazil, on the east and south with
Bolivia and Chile, the Bolivian frontier being much more
extensive than any of the others. Owing to the ex-
cessive infant mortality, and the great ravages of small-
pox amongst the aborigines, the population appears to
have remained almost stationary since the last census of
1876, when it was returned at 2,621,000 (besides some
350,000 uncivilised Indians), distributed amongst the
nineteen departments as under : —
Departments.
Piura
Cajamarca
Amazonas
Loreto .
Libertad
Ancachs
Lima 1
Callao J
Huaneavelica
Area in sq. miles.
Population
. 13,931
135,502
. 14,188
213,391
. 14,129
34,245
. 3-2,727
61,125
15,649
147,541
17,405
284,091
14,760
f 226,922
l 34,492
. 10,815
104,155
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Departments.
Area in sq. miles
Population
Huanuco "\
Junin J
33,822
/ 78,856
I 209,871
lea
6,295
60,111
Ayacucho
24,213
142,205
Cuzco
95,547
238,445
Puno
39,743
256,594
Arequipa
27,744
160,282
Moquegua
22,516
28,786
Apurimac
62,325
119,244
Lambayeque .
. 17,939
85,984
463,747
2,621,844
Wild Tribes . '
350,000
Tot
al est
. pop. 1898
2,971,844
Of the present inhabitants of Peru more than half,
or about 57 per cent, are believed to be full-blood
Indians, for the most part direct descendants of the
ancient people, who still speak the Quichua language,
and preserve almost unimpaired the consciousness of
their former greatness as an imperial race. About 23
per cent are Mestizos — partly Cholos, partly Zambos,
and the remaining 20 per cent mostly full -blood
Spaniards, with nearly 20,000 Europeans and Americans,
and perhaps 25,000 Asiatic coolies, mainly from the
southern provinces of China.
Physical Features : Plateaux and Cordilleras
That section of the Cordilleras which lies within the
political frontiers of Peru presents some distinctive
characters, the most striking of which are its general
trend and its horizontal development. About the lati-
tude of Arica towards the Chilian frontier the whole
system bends round somewhat abruptly from the normal
south-north to a north-wester! y direction, which is
maintained bv the main ranges for a distance of 1200
PEKU 189
miles to the Loja knot within the Ecuadorean frontier.
At the same time the uplands broaden out in the
direction from west to east far beyond the Peruvian
frontier, thus embracing a large part of the neighbouring
Bolivian republic, and developing a vast tableland, sur-
passed in extent and altitude only by the great Tibetan
plateaux. This tableland, which stands at a mean
elevation of from 11,000 to 12,000 feet, is enclosed east
and west by the two main branches of the Andean system.
In Peru these ramparts are respectively known as
the Andes and the Western Goi^dillera, the former term
being used in a pre-eminent and exclusive sense, while
Cordillera is also applied to the secondary ridges running
either parallel or transversely to the main ranges. In
general their elevation is less than that of the Chilian and
Ecuadorean sections, and in the south the western branch,
although presenting towards the sea the appearance of
an unbroken rocky barrier of great height, rises in reality
but little above the level of the plateau, of which in fact
it forms the seaward escarpment.
The Negra and Blanca Ranges
But farther north are developed the two lofty
and parallel crests of the Cordillera Negra and the
Cordillera Nevada, where the Peruvian system attains
its greatest elevation. Here the Cordillera Negra,
that is, the outer range between the sea and the
Pdo Huaraz, or upper valley of the Eio Santa coast-
stream, rises above 16,000 feet, while its low^est
passes stand at an altitude of 13,800 feet. But no
snow lodges on its upper crests, which, in contrast to
the inner range, remain bare and bleak, whence its
epithet of " Negra."
190 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Still loftier is the parallel inner range of the
Cordillera Nevada or Blanca, i.e., " white," which runs at
an altitude of over 18,000 feet between the Eio Huaraz
and the upper Maranon valley, and thus forms the true
water-parting between the Pacific and the Atlantic
slopes. Here stand all the highest summits of the
Peruvian highlands — the Gerro de Huandoy, the Cerro
de Hucdean, and the twin -peaked Cerro de Huascan,
all certainly over 20,000 feet, while, according to the
measurements of Hindle, Huascan towers to a height of
more than 22,000 feet
The Cerro de Pasco and Carabaya Eange
Towards the sources of the Maranon all the main
ranges, with their connecting cross-ridges, converge in the
knot of the Cerro de Pasco, which takes its name from
the neighbouring upland town of Pasco. In this rugged
alpine region, where the plateau formation almost dis-
appears amid a chaos of irregular crests and chains, the
Huaylillas peak rises considerably above 16,000 feet.
Here the Carabaya section of the eastern rampart facing
the Amazonian slopes has several snowy summits falling
little below 16,000 feet, while Chololo within the
Bolivian frontier has an estimated altitude of over
17,600 feet. This snowy Carabaya range, where the
Inambari and other headwaters of the Madre-de-Dies
have their source, throws out its eastern spurs as far as
67° W. long., which gives an extreme breadth of about
850 miles for the Peruvian uplands at their widest part
between Cuzco and 10° S. lat.
Farther north the plateau formation continually
decreases in breadth in the direction of Ecuador, while
the Cordilleras in the northern provinces fall proportion-
PEKU 191
ally in height and acquire a more irregular character.
Here the system breaks into a number of separate ridges
with peaks often not more than 10,000 feet high, but
still generally disposed in the same north-westerly
direction as the main ranges.
The Volcanic Zone : Misti — Ornate — Tutupaca
Passing southwards from Ecuador, the traveller is at
once struck by a marked change in the aspect of the
scenery, due to a total absence of volcanoes. No burn-
ing mountains occur anywhere except in the southern
section of the Western Cordillera, where they are mainly
confined to the districts of Arequipa and Moquegua.
Here are disposed roughly, in a line with the main crest,
a considerable number of extinct and quiescent cones,
some of which may approach and even exceed 20,000
feet in altitude. But, pending accurate measurements,
the estimates of observers vary greatly, as in the case of
Misti, most conspicuous and best known member of the
group, for which the estimates range from 17,900 to
20,260 feet. North of this central cone, which over-
shadows Arequipa, the loftiest summits appear to be
Chachani (19,820 ?), Acliataylum (18,700 ?), Sara-Sara
(20,000 ?), Coro-Puna, while to the south rise Ubinas,
the elongated and restless Ornate {Huayna- Patina), and
near the Chilian frontier Tutupaca or Candarave
(18,960?).
Both Omate and Tutupaca have been the scene of
terrific explosions, the latter in 1779, the former in
1600, when Arequipa, over 42 miles away, was nearly
destroyed by an earthquake, and then wrapped in a
shroud of black smoke for ten days. Prodigious quanti-
ties of scoriaj and aslies were ejected, the volcanic dust
192 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
was wafted 930 miles seawards, and the roar of the
groaning mountain was distinctly heard in Lima, 530
miles away to the north. One of the highest observa-
tories in the world has been erected by the American
astronomer, Mr. Pickering, on the Carmen Alto, a span
of Mount Misti about midway between the volcanoes of
Chachani in the north-west and TTbinas in the south-east.
Underground Agencies — Thermal Waters
Underground disturbances are, if less frequent,
certainly more violent in Peru than in Japan itself.
I^or are they restricted to any particular area, and are
felt quite as much in the igneous districts, despite their
volcanic " safety-valves," as in other parts of the " sea-
board and of the plateau. At Lima, away to the north,
the seismograph records on an average as many as eight
yearly shocks, one of which levelled its port of Callao in
1746. Arica and Arequipa were nearly destroyed in
1868, and the whole of this seaboard was again ravaged
in 1877.
The presence of dormant subterranean forces is attested
by numerous thermal springs occurring in every part of
the country, and generally abounding in mineral sub-
stances. Such are the so-called Bano del Inca, the
" Inca's Baths " ; the Agua Caliente, " Hot Waters " ;
Brioso, Chincay, Chancos, Fararcar, Patina, and many
others.
Varied Scenery — Local Terminology
Pew regions of the globe present a greater diversity
of sublime or picturesque scenery than the Peruvian
section of the Andean uplands, with their western and
PERU 193
eastern fringes of dry, arid seaboard, and moist
Amazonian woodlands. Here some confusion is caused
by the peculiar use of certain terms, by which the
different superimposed zones are locally distinguished.
Thus the montana comprises, not the Alpine heights, but
the lowest zone of wooded Amazonian slopes up to about
5000 feet. So also sierra is applied, not so much to
any particular jagged crest, as in other parts of the
Spanish -speaking world, as to the temperate zone,
generally between 5000 and 11,000 feet. Higher up
follows the 'pivna, corresponding to the Venezuelan and
Colombian paramo — a narrow zone of cold, bleak terraces
and passes from 11,000 to 14,000 or 15,000 feet, above
which are the snowy crests and slopes of the Alpine
region, designated as the cordillera, also in a special sense.
This singular diversity in the character of the land-
scape is referred to in vivid language by Mr. E. G.
Squier, who remarks that nowhere else does nature
assume grander, more imposing or varied aspects than in
Peru. " Deserts as bare and repulsive as those of the
Sahara alternate with valleys as luxuriant as those of
Italy. Lofty mountains, crowned with eternal snow, lift
high their rugged sides over broad bleak punas or table-
lands, themselves more elevated than the summits of the
Alleghanis. Elvers taking their rise among melting
snow precipitate themselves through deep and rocky
gorges into the Pacific, or meander, with gentle current,
amongst the majestic Andes to swell the flood of the
Amazon. There are lakes ranking in size with those
that feed the St. Lawrence, whose surfaces lie almost
level with the summit of Mont Blanc." ^
No greater contrast can well be conceived than the
two neighbouring regions of the Amazonian slope and
^ Peru: Incidents of Travel, etc., 1877.
VOL. I
194 COMPENDIUM or GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
the Andean uplands — a contrast apparent as much in
the conformation of the land as in its climate and
natural products. The montaiia, as above defined, pre-
sents itself as a boundless, relatively low -lying, hot
alluvial region, traversed in every direction by great
rivers teeming with multitudes of fishes in endless
variety of size and form. It is a land covered with
virgin forest, laden with luxuriant foliage and brilliant
blossom, rich in medicinal and other useful plants, birds
and wild animals, but thinly peopled with a few hordes
of savage Indians, struggling for existence against a too
exuberant nature. Here are seen the luxuriant growths
of the tropical world — tree-ferns, the graceful bamboo
and lovely palms, such as the PasMnha, shooting straight
up from its curious stilt -like aerial roots. Here prowls
the hungry jaguar, and all the land teems with
humming-birds, bright butterflies, and deadly snakes.
Here also thrive the sugar-cane, the coffee, cacao and
coca plants, the manioc root, and the valuable species of
the yellow chinchona bark known as C. calisaya, which
was obtained from this region by Sir Clements Markham
in 1860.
The mountainous parts of Peru, on the contrary,
though of less extent, present far more varied features,
and everywhere reveal the traces of a thousand historical
memories. Its Pacific seaboard, where in some places
are stored up for future use inexhaustible supplies of
petroleum, forms a long arid waste, at certain intervals
intersected by narrow green river-valleys. These wind-
ing strips of verdure are fertilised in the rainless zone by
the short coast-streams resulting from the melting of
the snows on the gigantic Cordilleras, which at some
points tower to a majestic height within a few miles of
the rock-bound shores of the ocean.
PERU 195
Farther inland the elevated plateau, ranging from
11,000 to 14,000 feet above the sea, is flanked on one
side by the unbroken line of the Western Cordillera, and
on the other by the less connected eastern chain of the
Andes. Here are situated the cold, barren, cheerless
despoUados and the scarcely less extensive punas, whose
scanty herbaceous vegetation yields but a meagre fare to
the llama and alpaca. Here are also situated those hill-
encircled holsones, or closed valleys, with the climate
and products of the temperate zones, where formerly
flourished the mysterious civilisation of the Incas.
Here are seen those deep, narrow, mountain gorges,
where the thousand head-streams of the Amazon collect
their waters before forcing their way over roaring
cataracts and through the dark clefts of the Andes
down to the plains of Brazil.
Hydrography — The Amazon System
Partly on geographical, partly on political grounds,
the mighty Amazonian fluvial system is usually and
conveniently divided into three great sections — the
Maranon or upper course, from its farthest sources in
the Peruvian highlands, to Tabatinga on the Brazilian
frontier ; the Solimoens or middle course, from this
point to the Eio Negro confluence ; and the Amazon
proper, or lower course, from the Eio Negro to the
Atlantic.
The two latter sections of the main stream, too-ether
with most of their ramifying branches, are comprised
within the confines of Brazil, while the upper section,
together with the upper valleys of some of the Solimoens
affluents, belong entirely to Peru. Here rise and flow
for hundreds of miles the Maraiion, the Huallaga, and
196 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
the Ucayali, that is, the three farthest head-streams of
the whole system, which with the Paute, Pastasa, Tigre,
and Napo from Ecuador converge above Tabatinga to
form the Solimoens. The three Peruvian valleys are all
disposed mainly parallel to each other in the direction
from south to north, the Ucayali in the east, that is,
along the inland slope of the Andes chain ; the Huallaga
in the middle, that is, mainly through the heart of the
plateau ; and the Maranon in the west, that is, nearest
to the Pacific along the inner foot of the Western
Cordillera.
It is apparently owing to this westernmost posi-
tion, farthest from the Atlantic, that the Maranon is
commonly regarded as the true upper course of the
Amazon. But were the question to be decided by length
and volume, this honour should certainly be transferred
to the Ucayali, which at the conHuence is the larger of
the two, and has also a much longer course, as was
already suspected by La Condamine in the eighteenth
century. The same view has since been taken by Squier
and others.
In any case the Ucayali was already known from
Arana's expedition of 1866 to be navigable by steamers
for hundreds of miles above the Maranon confluence.
For 600 miles to the mouth of the Pachitea, a tributary
from the west, it was found to have an average depth of
from 40 to 70 feet, with a gentle current of only two to
three miles an hour. The Pachitea itself was ascended
for a further distance of 204 miles to the junction of
the Falcazu, on the banks of which is situated the
village of Mayro, the nearest point to Lima, at which
this vast fluvial system begins to be navigable. The
two smaller steamers of the expedition had no difficulty
in reaching the port of Mayro, thus proving that by
PERU 197
this route the Amazon and its tributaries are navigable
for 3623 miles to within 325 miles of the Peruvian
capital.
It should be mentioned that a treaty was concluded
in 1851 with Brazil, securing the free navigation of the
Amazon by Peruvian vessels between the Atlantic and
these interior districts. Since 1862 the great water-
ways within Peruvian territory have, thanks to this
arrangement, been regularly traversed by steamers in
conjunction with the lines of Brazilian vessels plying
between the Atlantic port of Para and Tabatinga on the
Peruvian frontier.
The Maranon and Putumayo
The Maranon, which issues from the little Lake
Lauricocha, north of the Cerro de Pasco, at an altitude
of 14,270 feet above sea-level, flows for a long distance
in the normal north-westerly direction in a deep and
somewhat narrow bed, forcing its way through the Andes
proper in a series of wild rocky gorges and rapids, here
called pongos. At the Pongo de Manserichc, last and
most famous of these narrows, it has already reached
the low level of about 550 feet above the sea, so that
from this point to the estuary the fall is scarcely per-
ceptible. In the latitude of about 5° S. it curves round
from the north-west to the east, and retains this direction
for the rest of its course to the Atlantic.
In the debatable region between Peru and Ecuador
the Maraiion is joined on its right bank by the Huallaga
and the Ucayali, and at S. Antonio on the left below
Tabatinga by the Putumayo, which, although mainly a
Colombian river, enters Brazil in its lower course, and
higher up flows for some distance through territory con-
198 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
tested by Colombia and Peru. After its junction with
the S. Miguel and other head-streams about the frontiers
of Colombia and Ecuador, and not far from the Cerro de
Loja, the Putuniayo takes a south-easterly course through
the wooded Amazonian plains, where it is navigable by
small steamers for about 900 miles from Montepa to the
Solimoens. But the navigation is almost everywhere
much obstructed by tortuous windings, shoals, and shifting
sandbanks.
The Ucayali System
Unlike the Putumayo and the Maranon, the Ucayali is
formed by the junction, not of two or more separate head-
streams, but of two great fluvial systems, whose intricacies,
increased by an uncertain nomenclature, have not yet
been entirely unravelled. One of its chief sources lies
far to the south in the lakelet de la Eaya, on the northern
slope of the Cerro de Vilcanota, which forms the divide
between the Amazon and the closed basin of Lake Titicaca.
Here rises the Vilcamayo, which lower down becomes
the already mentioned Urubamba, and is joined on its
right bank by the Paucartambo. At this confluence the
main stream thus formed is variously known as the
Quillabamha, Uruhamba, and Vilcamayo, some confusion
being caused by this twofold use of the two last mentioned
terms, which, with the alternative Quillabamba, are in-
differently applied to the section of the south-eastern
system between the mouth of the Paucartambo and the
confluence of the south-western branch, as the second
great system may be called.
This is both the more intricate and apparently the
longer of the two, its most southern source being, accord-
ing- to some authorities, in the Cordillera de Chila, within
100 miles of the Pacific Ocean, while its westernmost
PERU 199
supplies come from the Junin basin beyond Lake Ghin-
chaycoclia, south of the Cerro de Pasco. From the south
comes the Catonga or A^Jurimac, already swollen in its
upper reaches by numerous tributaries, such as the
Tmribolamha, the Pacliachaca, Pampas, and Pulperia, all
flowing, like the Maranon, in deep, narrow, rocky beds.
The Pachachaca is spanned by a fine stone bridge dating
from Spanish times, while the Pampas and Apurimac
are crossed by the so-called mimhres, — aerial suspension-
bridges waving to and fro with every breath of wind.
From Lake Chinchaycocha issues the Pio Jaiija or
MantarOy which winds in a singularly tortuous channel,
here and there doubling upon itself in its struggles to
escape from the entanglements of the sierras to its
junction witli the Apurimac. Between the lake and this
point there is a total fall over endless gorges and rapids
of no less than 12,000 feet (13,420 to 1420). At the
confluence the united stream takes the name of Ene,
which after its union with the Perene becomes the
I'am'bo as far as its confluence with the south-eastern
system, where the united waters, here not more than
860 feet above sea-level, form the Ucayali properly so
called.
In its course of several hundred miles through the
montaha to the Maranon below the mouth of the Hual-
laga, the Ucayali has a total incline of not more than
540 feet (860 to 320). Hence in its lower course it
flows with an extremely sluggish current between low
winding banks, developing, like the Amazon itself, in-
numerable side-channels, backwaters, and spacious lagoons,
alternately flooded or left dry with the periodical in-
undations and subsidences. In its low^er reaches the
Ucayali is joined by only one important afiiuent, the
already described Pachitea.
200 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
The Huallaga and Javari
Although several hundred miles long, the Huallaga
is almost an insignificant stream compared with the
Maranon and the Ucayali, between which it flows in a
nearly parallel course to its junction with the former
below the mouth of the Pastasa. It is also of far less
economic importance, being so obstructed by pongos that,
according to Eaimondi, it cannot be safely navigated by
steamers beyond Laguna, about 2 8 miles above its mouth.
Light craft ascend at high water as far as Tingo Maria,
330 miles higher up.
Still less important is the Javari, which joins the
Amazon below Tabatinga, and for most of its course forma
the political boundary towards Brazil.
Pacific Drainage
There is no room for the development of large rivers
on the relatively narrow strip of seaboard, which is,
moreover, comprised for the most part within the rainless
zone. During the greater part of the year the fluvial
beds are mere quehradas, that is, waterless ravines, like
the wadys of Arabia, with a little moisture below the
surface and subject to periodical freshets. Of these
intermittent coast-streams the most copious appears to
be the Huaraz, which traverses the long, narrow, and
fertile valley known as the Callejon dc Huaraz between
the Cordilleras Negra and Nevada. Issuing from the
little Lake Conococha (12,940 feet), the Huaraz rushes
down a precipitous incline to its junction with the Chu-
quicara coming from the opposite direction. Below the
confluence the united stream turns abruptly to the left,
forcing a passage through the Cordillera Negra to the
PERU 201
coast zone, where it takes the name of Santa, from the
town near which it enters the Pacific after a rapid course
of about 240 miles. South of the Santa follow the
Rimac, which gives its name to Lima} capital of Peru,
the GJmnchanga, lea, Grande, Yauca, Ocona, Tamho, Ylo,
and others, not one of which is perennial or navigable at
any time.
Lacustrine Basins — Lake Titicaca
The term coclia, that is, "lake," which forms an
element in so many geographical names, attests the
presence on the plateau and its slopes of numerous lacus-
trine basins, such as Ghinchaycocha in the Junin district,
one of the sources of the Ucayali ; Parinacocha, Ghina-
cocha, Cahallococha, Suachacocha, Huascacocha, Orcococlia,
and others, mostly mere upland tarns of small size. But
on the south-east frontier stretches the vast closed basin
of Titicaca, which, however, belongs almost more to
Bolivia than to Peru.
Titicaca, which is incomparably the largest body of
fresh water in the southern continent, being surpassed in
the New World only by the great lakes of North
America, forms an irregular oval, disposed in the same
direction from south-east to north-west as all the great
Peruvian ranges, and divided into two very unequal
secondary basins by the two peninsulas of Gopacahana
and Tiguina. It has an extreme length of 130 miles,
with a mean breadth of 44 miles, and a total area of
3300 square miles. Its present altitude, which slightly
varies with the seasons, ranges from about 12,200 to
^ By normal interchange of r and I Rimac became Limac, and by loss
of c Lima. The word in Quichna means the "Speaker," in reference to a
temple which formerly stood on its banks and was famous for its oracular
utterances.
202 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
12,220 feet. But it formerly stood much higher, and
then discharged eastwards to the Amazon basin. At
present it has no seaward outflow, but sends its overflow
through the Desaguadero emissary, 160 miles long, to
the swampy and saline Lake AuUagas, which appears to
be itself a closed basin. At least there is but one per-
ceptible outlet, and that too small to carry off all the
superfluous water, so that the excess must either be dis-
charged by some underground channel or else lost by
evaporation. Owing to its great altitude Titicaca, which
has a depth in places of over 700 feet, presents a some-
what dreary aspect, its treeless shores fringed with a
scant and stunted vegetation, and its shelving margin
overgrown with tall rushes. Formerly its icy waters
were enlivened only by balsas with reed sails, but since
the opening of the railway through Arequipa to the
Pacific coast, Puno maintains a number of steamers on
the lake, besides a flotilla of balsas, which are made of
reeds firmly lashed together, and propelled by reed sails.
Climate
In Peru the three natural regions of the montana,
the plateau, and the seaboard have each its special
climate, while the higher crests penetrate into the frigid
zone. The trade-winds, which in all the equatorial
regions of the New World set steadily from east to west,
sweep up the great valley of the Amazon, checked by no
obstacle until they strike against the eastern slopes of
the Andes. Here the moisture-bearing clouds discharge
most of their contents in the form both of rain and snow,
and in their further progress across the plateau to the
Western Cordilleras the w^arm humid Atlantic currents
assume more and more the character of cold dry winds,
PERU 203
which blow away over the Pacific without contributing a
drop of rain to the western slopes and coast-lands. But
although a regular shower is here tlie rarest of phenomena,
a little moisture in the form of dense fog or vapour helps
to nourish the scanty vegetation during the winter season
from May to December. The garuas, as these vapours
are called, seldom rise higher than about 1300 feet on
the Pacific slopes, where the transition in some places is
quite abrupt from the lower foggy to the higher rainy
zone. On these coast-lands the temperature is moderated
both by the marine breezes and by Humboldt's cold
marine current, which here sets steadily from south t»>
north, and is many degrees cooler than the surrounding
waters. Thanks to these combined influences, the normal
temperature of Lima near 12° S. lat. is only about 68°
Fahr. At Nauta it rises to 77°, and falls with the
increasing altitude to 60° at Cuzco and 40° at Cerro
de Pasco.
Despite the relatively moderate mean temperature
all the low-lying coast-lands are exposed to the ravages of
yellow fever. Here also the Creoles, or whites of pure
Spanish stock, appear to be scarcely yet acclimatised.
There is little if any natural increase, owing to the
excessive mortality of the children, who are subject to
convulsions and to the so-called " seven-days' sickness,"
which attacks new-born infants and is always fatal.
Ague, dy sentry, and liver affections also prevail in the
seaboard, and typhus and typhoid fever in the montaiia,
while the uplands suffer especially from the somewhat
mysterious soroche. This strange disorder, which is due
to the rarefaction of the atmosphere at great elevations,
assumes different forms in different places, but is never
fatal.
204 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TPvAVEL
Flora
Thanks to the immense diversity of its soil and climate,
combined with the varying aspects and altitudes of the
land, the floras of all the zones, from the frigid to the
torrid, are represented in Peru. Here the exuberant
tropical forests of the hot and abundantly watered
montana are succeeded in the more elevated valleys by
the useful plants of the temperate and sub-tropical
regions, and above these follow the herbaceous and
scrubby growths of the elevated steppe and alpine slopes.
In some districts we pass from sugar, cacao, or coffee
plantations through banana groves to waving fields of
maize, wheat, or barley, to orchards with all the fruits of
the temperate zone, and to open, grassy plains roamed
by horned cattle and flocks of the native alpaca and
llama. Above the range of the cacao (2000 feet) the
coffee shrub (4000), the sugar-cane and nopal (4300), the
potato, European beans and cereals yield excellent
crops, while the vine, introduced at an early date,
thrives well in the volcanic Moquegua district on the
south-west coast.
A highly characteristic member of the Peruvian
vegetable kingdom is the so-called tamai caspi or " rain-
tree," which in the Moyobamba district grows to a height
of about 60 feet. It takes its name from the remark-
able property which it possesses of absorbing the humidity
of the atmosphere in such abundance that the foliage
keeps continually dripping even in the driest weather.
This property is not quite analogous to that of the
" pitcher-plant " of Madagascar, which does not appear to
distil the moisture, V)ut merely to collect the rain as it
falls in the large cavities at the junction of the branches
w"ith the stem.
PERU 205
Fauna
Of the large mammals the most characteristic, as well
as the most useful, is the " American camel," of which
there are four distinct varieties- — the llama, vicuna,
alpaca, and guanaco (huanaco). The llama, which thrives
on the coarse herbage of the puna region, where other
herbivorous animals w^ould perish of hunger, had already
been domesticated at a remote period as a beast of
burden by the Quichuas. Hence it is no longer found
in the wild state. When properly trained and well fed,
the llama carries a load of 60 to 70, or even 75 pounds,
and of its wool is ^voven a stout, serviceable cloth, while
in some districts its droppings (taquia) are the only
available fuel. The llama is not descended from the
guanaco, as was formerly supposed, but is certainly a
distinct and smaller species. Since the introduction of
the European horse, ass, and mule, the llama is less used
as a beast of burden, especially in the mines, and is now-
bred chiefly for its wool, which varies greatly in quality.
In this respect the fleece of the alpaca is much finer and
of more uniform texture, hence is largely imported into
Britain ; even the animal itself has been recently intro-
duced both into England and Ireland.
Although now confined to the Andean uplands, all
these members of the camel family ranged formerly not
only into Brazil and the Argentine pampas, but also into
ISTorth America, and the fossil remains of closely-allied
forms are found in the Tertiary deposits of all these
regions.
A curiosity of the snake world is the calainbo, a
species of boa constrictor, which the natives have succeeded
in domesticating. These large reptiles are trained like
watch -dogs to protect gardens and other enclosures from
206 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TEAVEL
depredators, and they become so attached to the place
where they have been brought up that it is tound
impossible to remove them elsewhere. Many parts of
the neighbouring ocean teem with marine life and
aquatic birds almost to an incredible extent.
Inhabitants — The Cultured Peoples — The Yuncas
There is good reason to believe that in pre-Columbian
times Peru was much more thickly peopled than at
present. The early writers assign a population of from
ten to twelve millions to the empire of the Incas, and
even after the massacres of Almagro, Pizarro, and their
followers, the same region is stated to have still had as
many as eight million inhabitants in 1580, or about
two millions more than at present.
From remote times the great bulk of these popula-
tions had been constituted in settled communities, with
political and social institutions sufficiently advanced to
justify their claim to be regarded as civilised peoples.
Amongst these peoples, who belonged to at least
two distinct races — the Quichua-Aymara of the plateau,
and the Yunca of the Pacific seaboard — three distinct
civilisations had been developed in three cultural
centres : Chimu of the Yuncas, in the present district of
Trujillo on the coast ; Tiahuanaco of the so-called
Aymaras, about the southern shores of Lake Titicaca ;
and Cuzeo of the Quichuas, in the present department
of that name. But some time before the advent of the
whites the first two had been absorbed in the third, so
that the Conquistadores found the whole region from
the equator to Chile, and from the Amazonian slopes to
the Pacific, constituted in a single political state — the
empire of the Incas, that is, of the dominant branch of
PERU 207
the Quichua nation. In later times the term " Inca "
acquired a somewhat restricted meaning, as the name of
a royal family or dynasty. But it is now generally
admitted that the Incas were originally a tribe of
Quichuan stock, who rose to power in the Cuzco district
under their chief Manco-Capac, " first of the Incas,"
early in the eleventh century. It should also be explained
that the other terms — Yunca, Aymara, and Quichua itself
— are aU misnomers, although now too firmly established
to be set aside. In the Quichua language "Yunca"
simply means hot lowlands, while " Chimu," also applied
to the race, was merely the name of their chief city near
Trujillo, so that the true name of this mysterious people
is lost. They have themselves been long assimilated to
their Quichua conquerors, who even planted colonies in
their territory, as was their wont. But their language,
which was called Mochica, and was radically distinct from
Quichua, has fortunately been preserved in a grammar
published in 1644 by F. de la Carrera, a native of the
country.
It is from this source, as well as from the character
of their monuments, that the Yuncas are known to have
been a distinct people, and their culture independently
developed in pre-Inca times. Their empire extended for
over 600 miles along the coast, and a vast space was
occupied by their capital, Chimu, which was captured
and destroyed by the Inca, Yupanqui. Tlie ruins of this
great city extend from the Monte Capana southwards to
the Ptio Moche, covering an area of nearly fifteen miles in
this direction, and from five to six east and west. " In
every direction, for an extent of several leagues, long
lines of massive walls, liuacas, palaces, aqueducts,
reservoirs of water and granaries can be made out.
Everything proves the power and wealth of a people, the
208 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
very name of whom has remained uncertain." ^ Of these
ruins the largest, as well as the most characteristic, are
the truncated pyramids here called huacas, or burying-
places, one of which stands on a base 580 feet square,
and is still 150 feet high. Larger still is the " Temple
of the Sun," at the village of Moche, which is a rect-
angular structure 800 by 470 feet, 200 feet high, and
covering an area of over 7 acres. Monuments of this
type occur nowhere else in South America, and from
their resemblance to the Mexican teocalli some archaeolo-
gists have inferred that the Yunca culture was of Toltec
origin. But the Toltecs are now believed to have been
a Maya people, and the Yunca language bears no kind
of resemblance to Maya, or to any other North American
tongue.
The Aymaras
Before their conquest by Mayta-Capac, the people
now called " Aymaras " appear to have had no collective
name, but were known as Collets, from the tribe on the
north side of Titicaca, which was the first met by the
Incas when they penetrated into this lacustrine basin.
After the conquest the whole region was partly resettled
in the usual way by families drawn from nearly all the
royal tribes of Peru. One of these were the Aymaras,
who founded new homes in the territory of the Lupacas,
a Colla people dwelling on the west side of the lake,
where after the Spanish conquest the Jesuits established
a mission in 1570. These Quichuan settlers w^ere thus
mistaken for a Colla tribe, and the term " Aymara "
transferred from an obscure Inca clan to the whole of
the Colla nation. The error was perpetuated v.'hen
the same name was given to the local dialect in
^ M. de Nadaillac, Pre-Ristoric America, p. 395.
PERU
209
which H grainmer was afterwards published (Eome, 1603),
but wliicli was not " Aymara " (Quichua) but the Lupaca
(CoUa) language, remotely akin to Quichua.
Eeference has already been made (Chap. III.) to the
ethnical and cultural relations of the Ayniaras to their
(j)uichuan conquerors and " younger brothers."' Their
THE GKEAT UOUi'aVAY, TIAHUANACU.
civilisation, as represented by the wonderful monuments
of Titicaca, on the whole the most stupendous ruins in
the Xew "World, is supposed to have been independently
developed on the spot, and in any case had its begin-
nings, like that of the Yuncas, in pre-Inca times. Its
distinctive character is shown not only by the still
standing megaliths, unlike anything else in America, but
also by the huge monolithic doorways, unlike anything
else in the whole world, as well as by many of the
VOL. I P
210 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
details — symbolical carvings, bas-reliefs, colossal statues,
exquisitely polished blocks, and numerous other features,
as described and illustrated in Stiibel and Uhle's
sumptuous work. The astonishment inspired by these
remains, which are scattered over a wide area, is greatly
increased when it is considered that they were erected
on what is now a bleak treeless plateau, 12,000 feet
above sea-level, and that the blocks, some weighing from
100 to 150 tons, had to be transported many miles
either up steep inclines or else across numerous inlets
along the shores of the lake. It would appear from the
many highly polished slabs lying tiat on the ground,
as if ready for the mason, that all formed part of a
general design rivalling in magnitude those of the
largest Egyptian temples, but never completed. The
great doorway, hewn in a single piece, weighing over 12
tons, and decorated with the image of Viracocha, tutelar
deity of the Aymaras, is the supreme triumph of the
native American architecture. " Its significance exceeds
everything hitherto discovered in Peru, and it ranks
amongst the most remarkable remains of pre-Columbian
America." ^
Other structures, which are also of veiy great interest,
being intimately associated with the most hallowed
memories and traditions of the Quichua-Aymara peojDles,
are found in the islands of the neighbouring lake.
Specially remarkable is that of Titicaca, which gives its
name to the whole basin.
The Quichuas— Empire of the Incas
After the subjugation of the Aymaras all their
sacred legends and traditions — older and more venerated
^ Stuhel und Uhle, Text, p. 20.
PERU
211
than those of the Quiclivias themselves — wouhl appear
to have been appropriated or adopted by the Incas.
Thus may be explained the curious fact that Titicaca,
which lay in Aymaraland and was unknown to the early
Incas, became nevertheless associated with the myth of
their divine origin. Here, according to some versions,
the sun reappeared after a total eclipse of several days ;
here were born Manco-Capac and Oello, children of the
Sun, and from Titicaca they issued fortli to found their
empire, not on the shores of the lake, but away to the
north in the heart of Peru.
Certain it is that the earlier and more genuine
tradition points, not to the Cave of Titicaca, but to that
of Paucaritainbo, about the centre of the national domain,
as the true cradle of the Inca race. Attempts were
afterwards made to reconcile those contradictions, and
one explanation was that, after issuing from Titicaca, the
first Inca and his wife descended into the earth and
reappeared through the cave at Paccaritambo. The
dynasty comprised altogether fourteen Incas (four more
or less mythical and ten historical), whose names and
dates, as recorded by Garcilasso de la Vega, himself of
Inca descent, are as under : —
A.D.
A.l).
Manco-Capac
. 1021
Vira-Cocha .
. 1289
Sinchi-Rocca
. 1062
Pacacutec
. 1340
Lloque-Yupanqui
. 1091
Yupanqui
. 1400
Mayta-Capac
. 1126
Tupac- Yupanqui .
. 1439
Capac-Yupanqui .
. 1156
Huayna-Capac
. 1475
Rocca .
. 1197
Huascar
. 1520?
Yahuar-Huaccac .
. 1 249
Atahualpa .
. 1532
Under Huayna-Capac, greutest of the Incas, and the
last who ruled over an undivided empire, the ^vhole
territory comprised four great divisions, which corre-
sponded with the four points of the compass, and were
212 COMPEXDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
connected with the capital, Cuzco, by four main high-
ways radiating north to Quitu, south to Collasuyu
(Aymaraland), east to Antisuyu, and west to the Yunca
country (Pacific Coast-lands). In the central and more
important district dwelt the dominant race, of whom
there were six distinct branches: (1) The Tncas, between
the Eios Apurimac and Paucartampu, with the inter-
vening valley of the Vilcamayo ; (2) The Canas, between
the Vilcanota Pass and the Incas in the same valley ;
(3) The Quichuas, whose name was later extended to the
whole nation, but whose proper territory lay between the
Kios Apurimac and Pampas ; (4) The Chancas, between
Huanta and the Eio Pampas; (5) The Huancas, in the
Jauja valley and thence to the Cerro de Pasco ; (6) The
Rucanas, on both slopes of the Western Cordillera.
Whether the large nation of the Chinchas, whose territory
(Chinchasuyu) lay north of Cuzco, belonged originally to
the same connection, seems doubtful. But in any case
they shared the destinies of all the Quichua groups, who
after long struggles for the supremacy were reduced and
merged in a single political system by the royal Inca
tribe.
Reference is often made to a particular Inca language,
and a few specimens are given. But these all belong to
the common Quichuan tongue, which obtained a wide
range under the sway of the Incas, is still the chief
medium of intercourse throughout the Ecuadorean and
Peruvian uplands, and has also spread to many of the
semi-civilised tribes along the banks of the Amazonian
affluents. It is a highly polysynthetic form of speech,
extremely flexible, rich, and sonorous, at least in the
northern districts, where the gutturals are softened and
harsh combinations avoided.
Although there is no native graphic system, the-
PERU 213
Quichuans possessed a somewhat copious oral literature,
A*
IXCA INDIAN.
much of which has heen perpetuated since written form
was given to the language hj the publication of Holguin's
214 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TEAVEL
Grammar in 1607. Besides the well-known drama of
Ollantay, the collections comprise numerous popular songs
or ballads, love ditties, elegies, and the like, all in a
tender, melancholy strain.
The Uncultured Peoples — The Antis
The other aborigines, most of whom were never
brought under Quichuan influences, and still dwell along
the river banks or in the wilds of the Montana, are
officially grouped in two social classes — the Tndios m msos
or Gristianos, who are generally baptized, somtwhat
settled, speak or understand Quichuan, and live on
friendly terms with the civilised communities, and the
Indios hravos, the wild tribes, still mostly independent,
and in the same state of nature as their forefathers in
pre-Columbian and pre-Inca times.
In the Upper Ucayali basin the most numerous and
powerful of these savage nations are still the Antis,
who gave their name to the eastern province of Antisuyu,
and are referred to in the above-mentioned Quichua
drama of Ollantay. The Gam^jas, as they are also called,
have always been dreaded for their ferocious character,
and are even said to have ' been cannibals. They wear
a long robe witli holes for the head and arms, allow
their long, lank hair to hang down over their shoulders,
and are specially distinguished by the beak of a toucan
on a bunch of feathers worn as an ornament round the
neck.
The Chunchos
Closely allied to the Antis are their neighbours, the
equally wild Ghunchos, who roam the forests east of
Cuzco and Tarnia. Here they form three somewhat
PERU
215
distinct groups — the IfuaxhijJai/rls, Tuyumris, and Siri-
iieyris-^who were said to have sprung from the royal
Inca tribe, and in any case were for a time hrought
under (^uichuan rule by the Inca Yupanqui. Other
groups, Itelonging to the same widespread family, range
into the province of Caravaya, and some have been met
A CHUNCHO FUOM THE MONTANA.
in the forests of Paucartampu, where they live in
well-constructed huts with walls 6 feet high, and good
pointed straw roofs, generally perched on rising grounds.
Socially the various Chuncho trihes present consideral^le
differences, some being pure savages, who roam the forests
in quest of game, have no religion whatever, bury the
dead in the huts, and are generally fierce, cruel, and
216
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TEAVEL
untamable, while others are advanced enough to cultivate
maize, yams, plantains, and pine-apx^les, and erect fixed
abodes large enough to accommodate twenty persons.
Topography— Railway Enterprise
When it is considered that centuries before the dis-
covery Peru was constituted in an organised state of vast
size, that in colonial times it formed the chief Spanish
Viceroyalty in the southern continent, and that since
then immense sums of money have been lavished in
developing its natural resources, surprise may well be
expressed at the small number of urban centres that have
sprung up in this region. The subjoined table of the
chief places on the Pacific and Atlantic slopes shows
that there are only six towns in the whole country with
more than 10,000 inhabitants: —
Pacific Slope
Atlantic
Slope
Lima
104,000
Cuzco .
. 22,000
Callao
35,000
Ayacucho .
9,000
Arequipa .
.34,000
Iquitos
8,000
Chiclayo ,
11,000
Cajaniarca .
7,000
Monsefu .
11,000
Cerro de Pasco
. 7,000
Trujillo ,
8,000
Huanuco
. 5,000
On the seaboard north of Lima the most important
place is TrnJiUo, founded by Pizarro in 1535 at the
mouth of the Pdo de Moche, amid the ruins of Grand
Chirnu, probably the largest city in pre-Columbian
America. Owing partly to the absence of natural
havens on this seaboard, exposed to heavy surf, none of
the coast towns north of Callao have acquired great
commercial importance. Trujillo is connected with the
port of Salaverri, formerly Garita de Moche, by a coast-
line running north to Chicama and Ascope through an
PERU
217
arid district, which has heeii restored to fertility by
repairing the old Chimu canals. Here is still to be seen
a vast reservoir built of solid concrete, and capable of
holding nearly 1800 million cubit feet.
A few miles farther north stands the port of
Pacasmayo, for which brighter prospects seem reserved.
Here is the seaward terminus of a line which at present
runs a short distance inland to Guadalupe and Chepen,
but is eventually to be continued through Cajamarca
and over the Cordilleras down to the Amazon valley.
At a time when money was being lavished on these
ambitious railway schemes, this line was spoken of
merely as the first section of a trans-continental trunk
line between the two oceans. Chimhote, on El Eerrol
Bay, south of the Eio Santa, is the starting-point of
another project known as the Huaraz line, which has
already been carried up the Huaylas valley to Becuay,
centre of a mining district 11,000 feet above sea-level.
This line traverses the department of Ancachs, which
takes its name from the little Ancachs rivulet, where the
insurgents gained a decisive victory over the Spanish
forces. The Ancachs joins the right bank of the Eio
Santa just below Yungay, at the foot of the Cerro de
Huascan. A little lower down is the town of Caraz,
noted for its quicksilver and coal mines, and for a
peculiar variety of the potato, wdiich ripens in three
months. Below Caraz follows Huaylas, which gives its
name to the upper course of the Eio Santa. All these
places are stations on the Huaraz railway, which follows all
the windings of the fluvial valley to its source at Eecuay.
Below Chimbote, the coast town of Huaura, at the
mouth of the Eio Supe, is the present terminus of a coast-
line which runs by Huaiicho, Chancay, and Ancon to
Lima. During the progress of the works on this line
218 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
a cvitting in the dunes at Ancon revealed an extensive
old burial-place, from which have been recovered great
quantities of objects illustrating almost all branches of
the Peruvian arts and industries. These objects — pottery,
textile fabrics, ornaments, arms, utensils, and implements
of all kinds — had been deposited- with the dead, and,
thanks to the extremely dry climate, were found for the
most part in a good state of preservation. The dead
themselves were mummified and wrapped in packs enclos-
ing one or more bodies, or even several members of a
family, and so arranged as to present the rough appear-
ance of a single human being with a false head, but very
broad and without any attempt at .reproducing the
contour-lines of the figure. The outer wraps varied in
quality with the social position of the departed, some
being extremely rich, others plain and coarse as sack-
cloth, as it was inside these wraps that were found most
of the articles stowed away with the dead to supply them
with all their requirements in the after life.^
After the overthrow of the Incas, it was at once seen
that the seat of the new government would have to be
removed from their inland capital, Cuzco, to some point
on the seaboard affording easy communication with the
metropolis. In the absence of any good havens, the
most favourable site seemed to be the open roadstead
at the mouth of the little river Eimac, which was
sheltered by the island of San Lorenzo and a projecting
tongue of land from the west and south-w^est winds.
Here was the seaport of Callao, which now became the
outlet of the new capital Lima, founded in 1535 by
Pizarro on the left bank of the river three or four miles
from the coast.
1 W. Reiss and A. Stubel, Peruvian Antiqidtics. The Necropolis of
Ancon in Peru, English edition by A. H. Keane, 1881-83.
PERU
219
In anticipation of a greatness destined never to be
realised, the " City of Kings," as it was called, was laid
out on a large scale. But the " Empire City of the New
World " has disappointed the hopes of its inhalutants,
and is already outstripped in wealth, trade, and popula-
tion by Valparaiso, Buenos Ayres, Rio de Janeiro, and
a few other places in South America alone.
Lima stands almost at the very foot of the Coast
Itange, whose advanced spurs rise immediately above the
Hat roofs of the houses. From these heights a com-
manding view is afforded of the city, laid out like a
cliess-board, diversified chiefly by numerous churches,
conspicuous amongst which is the fine old Spanish cathe-
dral on the " Plaza Mayor." In this bird's-eye view are
also comprised the often really magnificent inner courts
«jf the more aristocratic quarters. But what imparts to
Lima quite a characteristic aspect are the countless little
220 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRArHY AND TRAVEL
square structures on the flat roofs, provided with trap
windows, which serve the double purpose of ventilating
and lighting the interior.
Scarcely a drop of rain falls for years together,
although now and then the saturated atmosphere pre-
cipitates a heavy dew sufficient to moisten the surface
of the ground.
In the Plaza Mayor, which, as is usual in South
American cities, forms a perfect square, stands the
cathedral, flanked with two lofty towers. The centre of
the square is laid out as a public garden, ornamented
with fountains, statues, and marble seats, and enclosed
on three sides by covered colonnades, beneath which
wares of all kinds are exposed for sale. Amongst the
scientific and literary institutions are the University
of San Marcos, the oldest in South America, several
libraries and museums, which were despoiled of some
of their treasures when the place was occupied by the
Chilians during the war of 1879-81.
The monotonous appearance of the straight lines of
streets is relieved by the varied forms of the projecting
balconies, by the elegant warehouses mostly in the hands
of strangers, and the numerous tiendas or retail-shops,
chiefly owned by Italians, of whom there are many
thousands in Lima. There are also a good many Germans
and French, the latter mostly hotel -keepers, perfumers,
and owners of coffee-houses and fashionable establish-
ments. The English and Americans, on the contrary,
are found chiefly in Callao, where the shipping interests
are centred.
This flourishing seaport, which is now provided with
repairing docks and a new harbour 50 acres in extent,
does fully one-half of the foreign trade of the country.
It is connected with the capital by shaded avenues, and
PERU
221
two railways seven miles long. One of these forms a
seaward extension of the famous Oroya line, which is
justly regarded as one of the greatest engineering
triumphs of modern times. In the short distance of
106 miles it ascends the western slopes from sea-level
at Callao to a height of 15,665 feet at the culminating
point on the crest of the Cordillera. From this point,
the highest yet reached by any railway, the eastern
CALLAO UAKllUlK.
section, 30 miles long, falls with a gradient of 120 feet
per mile down to a level of 12,178 at its present
terminus, Oroya, on the Eio Jauja in the Amazon basin.
The total length is thus 136 miles ; but the line is to be
continued eastwards through Tarma and Chanchamayo,
down to some point about the head of the navigation of
the Maraiion.
The works, everywhere interrupted by the Chilian
war, have since been slowly resumed at several points.
222 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
An English company has undertaken to complete the
whole of the Central Peruvian system, on which
£36,000,000 have already been expended. From
Oroya, the central station, several lines are to be con-
structed to Cerro de Pasco, the chief silver -mining
centre in Peru, and to other places on the plateau, so
as to effect junctions northwards with the Pacasmayo-
Cajamarca line, and southwards through Tonquini,
Ayaciwho, and Cuzco with Sicuani, present terminus of
the Mollendo-Puno system. Even before the war the
main section of this system had already been completed
from Mollendo on the coast, north of Arica, to Puno on
the north-west side of Lake Titicaca, climbing the
Cordillera to an extreme altitude of 14,640 feet at
Crucero Alto. Prom Puno two branches are to run
south to Bolivia and north to the Oroya system. Since
the war the northern branch has been carried as far as
Sicuani, and is advancing in the direction of Cuzco,
while a beginning has been made with the section
between Ayacucho and Tonquini.
Even when all these sections are constructed, other
branches will be needed to connect the Pacific termini of
the three trunk lines — Pacasmayo, Callao, and Mollendo
— with the Amazonian affluents, at points where they
become navigable below the falls and rapids. One of
these necessary connections, already begun, is to run
from Oroya through Tarma down the Perene valley to
the Ucayali ; while another, branching from Ayacucho
northwards, down the ]\Iantaro valley to the Apurimac-
Tambo confluence, has at least been surveyed. Certainly
many more millions will be required to carry out the
whole scheme, and until this is done the magnificent
works already executed can never pay. At present the
transport of goods between the Pacific and Amazonian
PERU
223
basins varies according to circumstances from about
£35 to £70, or even £80 per ton, an almost prohibitive
charge for a scanty population laden with other heavy-
burdens.
Of the above-mentioned upland towns, whose pros-
pects are dependent on the development of the Central
BRIDGE OX THE OROYA RAILWAY.
Eailway system, the most noteworthy is Cuzco, ancient
capital of the Incas, and still a place of some importance.
It stands at an elevation of 11,400 feet on two torrents
flowing to the Upper Huilcamayo, some distance below
Sicuani, northernmost station of the Mollendo-Puno
railway. The walls of the houses and temples of the
ancient city are of such massive masonry that they
224 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
remain intact. Upon them have been erected most of
the churches, convents, and private mansions of the new
town. The names of the four quarters, designated from
the four points of the compass, and set apart by the
Incas for their subjects from the northern, southern,
eastern, and western provinces, are now disused. The
great central square has been' divided by houses into
two smaller squares, which are flanked by some of the
finest buildings of the Spanish city.
Conspicuous amongst these are the cathedral and
several other churches, whose handsome exteriors are
not unworthy of the ancient city. The cathedral
replaces the palace of one of the Incas. The church
of San Domingo is on the site of the old Temple of the
Sun, where stood a solid gold statue of the great orb,
tutelar deity of the Incas. On a neighbouring height,
laid out in terraces, still stand the massive ruins of the
Colcampata palace attributed to Manco-Capac, founder
of the dynasty. Above all rises the famous citadel of
Sacsah'ua77ian, which is said by Garcilasso de la Vega to
have been constructed by the luca, Viracocha, but is in
reality much older. After a stubborn resistance it was
captured by Fernando Pizarro in 1532. Cuzco may be
quickened into new life as soon as the railway is
completed, by which direct access will be afforded
through Puno and Arequipa to the coast at Mollendo.
Arequipa, the first important station above Mollendo,
from which it is distant 100 miles, is noted for its
earthquakes. Standing at an elevation of 7600 feet
under the shadow of Misti, in a volcanic district subject
to constant disturbances, this place has suffered much
from earthquakes, by which it was half ruined in 1600,
and again in 1868. Villa Hermosa, as it was called
by its founder, Francisco Pizarro in 1540, has claims to
PERU 225
distinction, and its inhabitants perhaps justly regard
themselves as the most enterprising and intelligent
citizens of the republic. Besides the already mentioned
observatory on Carmen Alto, a meteorological station has
been established on the neighbouring Mount Chachani
at an altitude of 16,280 feet, which is more than 2000
feet higher than that of Pike's Peak, Colorado, the next
highest on the globe.
In the rainless zone between Callao and Mollendo
some shelter is afforded by the Chincha Islands to the
open roadstead of Pisco, which has been chosen as the
starting-point of another Andean railway. A first
section, 45 miles long, has already been constructed
across the arid Pampa de Chunchanga district to lea, on
the right bank of the river of like name. Here it stops
for the present at the foot of the hills, but is eventually
to be continued up the slopes to the district about the
sources of the rivers lea and Chunchanga (Pisco), which
has long been celebrated for its rich silver ores. At the
head of the Chunchanga gorge stands the now almost
deserted station of Gastrovireina, so named in honour of
the wife of the Viceroy, Marquis of Canete, at a time
when the mining industry was at the height of its
prosperity. Of her it is related that a noble and
wealthy Indian lady, to whose child the Vice-Queen
stood godmother at this place, paved with silver slabs
the path which she had to take from her residence to
the church in order to attend the christening. But this
display of wealth was followed by a dire calamity — the
collapse of the richest galleries, crushing over 120 of
the underground toilers. Since then most of the mines
have been abandoned, and will probably not again be
opened until the completion of the projected railway
with the coast.
VOL. I Q
226
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
111 the district between Mollendo and the old Chilian
frontier two otlier lines were undertaken during the
period when railway speculation was at fever heat. The
northernmost of these was carried from 1U> (Ylo), a few
miles inland, to Moquegua in the direction of Lake
Titicaca, and there it is likely to stop for many years to
come. Better prospects may perhaps be in store for the
second, which runs from the important frontier town of
Arica to Tacna in the same direction, and also shares in
the busy life of the neighbouring Chilian nitrate in-
dustry. Arica, which was restored by Chile to Peru in
1898, marks the point where the main Andean axis
makes a sharp bend to the north-west. It is exposed
not only to underground disturbances, but also to con-
current seacjuakes, when the sea first retires to a con-
siderable distance from the shore, and then rushes back
with a force that nothing can resist. In 1868 a large
vessel was torn from its anchorage and borne on the
crest of a huge wave more than a mile inland. Then in
PERU 227
1877 the process was reversed, the sanie vessel being
carried half the distance back to its natural element,
without any loss of life to a little community of several
families who had in the interval established themselves
in the hull.
Natural Resources — Vegetable Products •
Hitherto the almost inexhaustible natural resources
of the alluvial Amazonian woodlands have been scarcely
more than tapped. Eeference has already been made to
the valuable species of chinch ona obtained some years
ago from this region. Tlie working of the best kind of
caoutchouc is now a considerable industry. Foremost
amongst the other products of the Montaiia is the
much-prized coca {Erijthroxylon coca), the tonic virtues
of which have been placed beyond doubt by modern
research. As a stimulant it is much used by the
natives, who chew the leaves mixed with the ashes of
Ghenoiiodiurii qiiinoa, and are thus enal>led to undergo
great tatigue on a scanty supply of food.
Gruano — Minerals
Formerly Peru possessed great sources of wealth in
its guano and nitrate deposits, Ijoth of which are of
extreme importance as fertilisers. But the guano-beds
are already nearly exhausted, while the nitrate fields have
passed into the hands of Chile since the war of 1879-81.
The richest guano deposits were those of the Chinclias, a
dreary arid group of rocky islets in the neighbourhood of
I'isco. The beds were worked from the surface down-
wards, the material being removed in layers, and con-
veyed on trams either to the molo or wharf or else to
the edge of the cliff and shot over into large barges, and
228 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
thence transferred to the vessels engaged in the trade.
In 1873 the export from the Chinchas amounted to
100,000 tons, and the deposits on the Guanajje and
Macahi islands were also being worked. Operations were
later extended to the Lolos and Viejas groups in Inde-
pendencia Bay, to the Lobillo and Huanillo islets in
Chiapana Bay, and to others at Punta Alba and Pabellon
de Pica. All these smaller beds, which had been seized
by the Chilians, have now been delivered over to the
Peruvian Corporation, which has been constituted to
develop the resources of the country for the mutual
benefit of the Peruvian Government and its foreign
(chiefly English) creditors.
Even the mineral industry, of which Peru was formerly
a chief centre, has greatly fallen off, and many of the
gold and silver mines have been closed, or yield but poor
returns. In 1897 the mining claims of all kinds — the
precious metals, copper, lead, zinc, quicksilver, sulphur,
salt, coal, and petroleum- — numbered 3475 ; yet the total
value of the minerals yearly exported now rarely exceeds
£700,000 or £800,000, while in 1896 the total silver
production fell short of 3,400,000 oz. Hence the under-
ground treasures of the country, which undoubtedly still
exist in great abundance and variety, have at least at
present more of a historical than of a practical interest.
Humboldt has estimated the actual quantity of tlie
precious metals extracted from the Peruvian mines under
the viceroyalty down to the year 1803 at £246,000,000,
and since then the mint of Lima alone issued silver
pieces to the value of £3,500,000 between the years
1826 and 1833. This was independent not only of the
Cuzco mintage, but also of the silver ingots and ores,
large quantities of which were exported during the same
period. Cerro de Pasco, centre of a rich argentiferous
PERU 229
district in the department of Junin, has also its smelting
works, where the silver ores are dealt with, and stamped
bars or ingots issued to the yearly value of about £300,000.
But Peru has long ceased to hold the first place as a
centre of the mining industry, and in this respect is
already surpassed not only by the United States, Australia,
and South Africa, but even by the neighbouring republics
of Chile and Bolivia.
But, even after most of the mines had for one reason
or another been closed, and when the guano-beds began
to o-ive out, it was discovered that the State possessed a
still scarcely touched source of immense wealth in the
nitrate and other mineral deposits of the southern
province of Tarapaca. On the maps this district figures
as part of the " Desert of Atacama," an expression which
also comprises the former Bolivian coast district of Anto-
fagasta, together with Tocopilla, Talcal, and other tracts
in North Chile. The whole territory is unquestionably
on the surface a desert in the strict sense of the term —
a dreary, treeless waste, for long ages forming part of the
South American arid zone. But below the surface pro-
bably no other region of the same extent possesses a
greater abundance of useful mineral products. Besides
the nitrates of soda and some other rich fertilisers slowly
accumulated beneath those rainless skies, here are con-
centrated in the relatively narrow space between the sea-
shore and the first Andean foothills great stores of borax,
iodine, coal, and rock-salt, besides an extraordinary variety
of minerals, such as gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, nickel,
and cobalt. In the northern part of the Peruvian coast
another source of wealth has been discovered in the almost
inexhaustible supplies of petroleum in the desert, 9 miles
in extent, between the rivers Chira and Tumbez. This
discovery goes far to make up for the loss of Tarapaca.
230 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Causes and Results of the Chilian War
But scarcely had the Peruvian Government laid hands
on these reserves of wealth, in order to replenish the
national coffers exhausted by reckless extravagance and
speculation, when frontier questions and tariff difficulties
were renewed or created by the two conterminous States,
also eager to secure as large a share as possible of the
lately discovered treasures. At that time Bolivia had
access to the sea through the district of Antofagasta,
wedoed in between South Peru and Xorth Chile. But
the southern boundary had fluctuated since 1861 between
23° and 24° S. lat., claimed respectively by Chile and
Bolivia, and under the new conditions a degree more
or less now became a matter of national importance.
Meantime Chilian speculators had poured into the debat-
able territory, and to the boundary question was added
the tariff dispute, when the Bolivian Custom-House officers
endeavoured to levy increased export duties on the
nitrates shipped by a Chilian company at the port of
Antofagasta. Thus arose the war of 1879-81, in which
Peru sided with Bolivia, and which resulted in the
cession by these States of the mineral districts of Tarapaca
and Antofagasta to the victorious Chilians. Thus also
Bolivia became, at least temporarily, a land-locked Power,
while Peru, half-ruined by a disastrous war, lost the
prospective means of meeting her ever-increasing liabilities
towards her foreign (almost exclusively British) creditors.
The Peruvian Corporation
A compromise had therefore to be effected, and thus
was created the so-called " Peruvian Corporation," to
which were transferred a large portion of the national
PERU 231
assets, to be developed by them in the mutual interest of
the State and of the bond-holders. Thus, in virtue of
the Grace -Donoughmore contract, ratified in January
1890, Peru was released from all responsibility in respect
of the public debt, which, with arrears of unpaid interest,
amounted at that date to £23,000,000, while all the
railways, guano deposits, mines, and lands of the State
were ceded to the bond-holders for a term of sixty-six
years. The expectation that by that time all liabilities
would be cleared off has scarcely been borne out so far.
Several important details of the agreement still remain
unsettled, and at a meeting of the Corporation in London
in January 1899 it was stated that the yearly revenue
was stationary at about £140,000, just enough to pay
the reduced interest upon the debentures.
Administration
Peru, in colonial times the most important of the
Spanish South American Viceroyalties, proclaimed her
independence in 1821, and after a severe struggle, con-
tinued for nearly four years, vindicated the claim in
1824. The present Constitution dates from October
1856, and, as revised, from November 1860. The
legislative power is vested in a Senate and a House
of Ptepresentatives, the former composed of provincial
deputies in the proportion of one for every 30,000 in-
habitants, the latter of members returned by the electoral
colleges of the provinces of each department, generally at
the rate of two for each province.
The executive is entrusted to a President and two
Vice-Presidents, elected for four years, and assisted by six
Cabinet Ministers, dependent on the President. There is
little fault to find witli the general scheme of adminis-
232 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
tration, which since the Chilian war has worked fairly
well. Although the Peruvian Corporation exercises no
o-overning functions, it tends indirectly to strengthen the
hands of the authorities, by stimulating local enterprise,
and thus fostering those industrial habits which make
for peace.
Although politically all classes are equal, religious
freedom is barred by the terms of the Constitution, which
not only recognises Catholicism as the State religion, but
also in principle forbids the public exercise of any other
form of worship. Practically, however, a measm-e of
tolerance is extended to the Protestant communities
(chiefly English and American), which have churches in
Callao and Lima.
Elementary instruction is compulsory, and also free in
the municipal schools. Even the high schools main-
tained by the State in the departmental capitals are in
great measure free, although a small fee is charged in
some places. There are universities at Cuzco and
Arequipa subordinate to that of Lima, which is the oldest
in the New World, its charter having been granted by
Charles V. The " TJniversidad de San Marcos," as this
central establishment is called, has a somewhat com-
plete curriculum, including faculties of theology, juris-
prudence, medicine, political and applied sciences.
Since the war the land forces have been reduced to
about 5000 men of all arms, and the navy to a single
cruiser, a few small steamers and a training ship.
To face page 232.
CHAPTEE VIII
BOLIVIA
Boundaries, Extent, Population — Physical Features — The Coast Range
and the Cordillera Real — The Cordillera de Cochabamba and the
Eastern Sierras — The Yungas Zone — Hydrography — The Titicaca
Closed Lacustrine Basin — -The Madre de Dios and Beni Rivers — The
Rio Grande and Mamore — The Mojos Lacustrine Depression — The
Pilcomayo — Climate — Flora — Fauna — Inhabitants— The Mojos— The
Chiquitos — The Chiriguanos— The Bolivians — Historic Retrospect-
Topography — Railway Projects — Resources — Minerals — Vegetable
Products — Communications — Administration.
Boundaries, Extent, Population
Landwards Bolivia is conterminous with as many as five
different States — -Peru and Chile on the west, Aroentina
and Paraguay on the south, and Brazil on the north and
east sides. But the boundaries are almost everywhere
purely conventional lines, drawn with little regard to the
physical features of the land, and leaving several frontier
questions still unsettled. After the war of 1879-81 the
littoral district of Antofagasta, nearly 30,000 square miles
in extent, was retained by Chile, and for a time Bolivia
was reduced to the position of an inland power. Here, by
the treaty of 1884, everything south of 23° S. lat. was
surrendered in perpetuity, while the section of the
Atacama desert between that parallel and the Eio Loa,
284 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
former frontier towards Peru, was first mortgaged to
Chile, and then in 1895 ceded absolutely, in exchange for
the little seaport of Mejillones del Norte between Iquique
and Pisagua in the old Peruvian province of Tarapaca.
Access to the Pacific was also once more secured by the
grant of a narrow strip running through the same
province to Mejillones. But against this concession Peru
has entered a formal protest, as being against her interests,
so that the arrangement can scarcely be considered final.
In the interior the boundary towards Chile was also
modified in 1884, and instead of following the crest of
the Coast Eange it has been deflected a little to the east
as far south as the Licancaur volcano, beyond which
point it trends slightly south by east to the frontier.
Towards Peru, Bolivia claims a contested line drawn from
the head of the Eio Yavary to that of the Amarumayo
(Madre de Dios), thence to and across Lake Titicaca to the
outlet of the Desaguadero, and from that point south-west
to the Eio Mauri, which is followed to the province of
Tacna, now held by Chile. But Peru makes the line
coincide with the course of the Beni from its source to
the Madeira. The Brazilian boundary, as fixed in 1875,
runs in the north from the head of the Yavary to the
Beni -Madeira confluence, and thence along the Eios
Mamore, Guapore (Itenez), and Verde to the Cerro de
Cuatro Hermanos. Here it trends east to the head of
the Eio San Matias, which is fallowed to Lake Uberaba,
from which point it is drawn at a little distance from,
but parallel with, the right bank of the Paraguay to
Puerto Pacheco, and thence along the river itself to
Paraguay. With this State the boundary, settled in
1894, forms a straight line between the left bank of the
Pilcomayo at 22° S. lat. and the right bank of the
Paraguay at Fort Olimpo (21° S.).
BOLIVIA 235
By the same Convention of 1894 the free navigation
of the main stream was granted to Bolivia, which thus
secured an outlet to the Atlantic by the Parana, that
river being also free to all flags. By the agreement of
1888 the boundary towards Argentina coincides with 22°
S. lat. between the Eios Pilcomayo and Bermejo, follows
this river for some distance to the south-west, and then
runs west towards the Sierra de Victoria, and round the
foot of the Sierra de Santa Catalina to the right bank
of the San Jvian, which is followed southwards to the
Chilian frontier.
Within these extremely arbitrary limits Bolivia has a
superficial area of 567,000 square miles, with a popula-
tion, according to the official estimates of 1890-98, of
about 2,000,000, distributed over the eight departments
as under : —
Departments.
Area in sq. miles.
Population
La Paz (le Ayacucho .
171,200
593,779
Potosi ...
52,084
360,400
Oruro
21,331
189,840
Sucre (Chuquisaca)
39,871
286,710
Cochabamba
21,417
360,220
Beni ....
100,551
26,750
Santa-Cruz de la Sierra
126,305
112,200
Tarija
34,599
89,650
Tota
1 . 567,360
2,019,549
Great uncertainty prevails both in respect of these
figures, which are raised by some authorities to 2,270,000
and reduced by others to less than 1,500,000, and also
regarding the constituent elements of the inhabitants.
These are usually grouped under three broad divisions,
— -full -blood aborigines, numbering from 200,000
to 300,000 ; mestizoes, but with a slight European
strain, leading sedentary lives in Christian communities,
236 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
speaking native languages, and numbering probably about
1,000,000; lastly, the so-called luhites, that is the civilised
ruling class, with a more decided strain of European blood,
of Spanish speech, though often familiar with Ayniara,
concentrated chiefly in the urban, agricultural, and mining
districts of the uplands (Bolivia proper), and numbering
perhaps 700,000 or 800,000.
It is easy to understand that, under a weak or dis-
orderly administration such as has for the most part
prevailed in Bolivia, heterogeneous populations of this
sort, with such a large preponderance of the Indian
element, must constitute a standing menace to the
stability of the State itself. Hence it is that in Bolivia
internal disorders often assume a more serious aspect than
elsewhere. During the last revolution, which broke out
in ISTovember 1898, fears were entertained of a general
rising of the natives, and such an event — always possible
— might lead to the intervention of the neighbouring
Powers, if not to the dismemlierment of the republic.
Physical Features — The Coast Eange and the Cordillera Real
That central section of the Andean uplands which is
comprised within Bolivian territory lies roughly between
10° S. lat. and the Tropic of Capricorn, about midway
between the parallels of the Amazon and Plate estuaries,
and over against the most elevated parts of the Brazilian
highlands. It has thus for long ages been somewhat
less exposed than the northern and southern sections to
the direct action of the moisture-bearing Atlantic winds,
and has consequently suffered less from the erosive effects
of the running waters, which have caused such a pro-
digious extent of denudation along the eastern slopes of
the Peruvian Ecuadorean and Chilian Andes.
BOLIVIA 237
The result is that the pristine configuration of the
whole system has been better preserved in Bolivia than
elsewhere. Here the Andean approach nearest to the
Brazilian uplands, and here is developed a far greater
■breadth of elevated plateau formations than in any other
part of the southern continent. The two main ranges,
that is to say, the Coast or Western Cordillera, and the
Andes properly so called, which in Chile and Argentina
are separated only by a relatively narrow tableland,
broaden out in Bolivia to such an extent as to enclose
one of the most spacious and elevated plateaux on the globe.
Moreover both chains, but especially the Andes, throw off
a number of secondary spurs and offshoots and even dis-
tinct sierras in the direction of the east, by which the
Bolivian system is brought at some points within
measureable distance of the Brazilian uplands.
To the Coast Eange, which is now included in Chilian
territory, belong several spurs and lateral ridges, with
some lofty summits, such as Taxiora or Chipicani, Sajama
(21,000 feet), Sapaya, Tua, and Viscachillas, all lying
well witliin the Bolivian frontier. But most of the
highest peaks occur in the Andes proper, which traverse
the whole region for about 560 miles in the normal
direction from south-east to north-west. Like the
Ecuadorean and Peruvian systems, the Bolivian Andes
have also their converging " knot," which here takes the
name of Apoloiamha, and is formed by the junction of
the Carabaya range, with the crests rising to heights of
16,000 and 17,000 feet on the north-east side of Lake
Titicaca.
The Cordillera Real (" Eoyal Cordillera "), as the
section of the Andes is called which skirts the east side
of Titicaca, presents a great diversity of aspects in its
numerous sharp peaks, conical, dome-like or bell-shaped
238 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
summits, penetrating iu many places above the snow-line,
which here stands at about 17,300 feet above sea-level.
In this section are grouped most of the giants of the
Bolivian highlands, such as the triple-crested lllampu
or Sorata, probable calminating point of the southern
ILLIMANI.
Continent (23,500 feet?), and its proud rival Illima^ii
(22,500), which also terminates in three snowy peaks.
The " Pic de Paris," one of the lower crests of Sorata,
was scaled by Wiener in 1877, and in September
1898 Sir Martin Conway for the first time ascended
the highest point of Illimani. " The last part of the
ascent was made by a long ice-wall, and across a huge
BOLIVIA 239
snow-plateau, leading finally up a snow-ridge to the
summit." ^
Illimani, which is unsurpassed for its imposing
GORGK XEAR THE CUZANACO MINE, ILLIMAM.
grandeur and varied aspects, rises close to La Paz above
the profound gorge through which the Titicaca basin
formerly sent its overflow to the inland sea. Beyond
^ Geograph. Jour., October 189S, p. 417.
240 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
this cleft the Cordillera Eeal is continued for a distance
of over 200 miles to the Cochahamha knot, which is
dominated by the 6'e?T0 Timari, 16,200 feet high.
Here the Cordillera bifurcates, throwing off to the left
an irregular eastern branch, while the main chain takes
a southern trend parallel with the Chilian Coast Eange.
This southern section, which again breaks into secondary-
ridges or isolated masses, is surmounted by several lofty
summits, such as Michaga (17,400 feet), Cuzco (17,930),
and (east of the main axis) Chorolque (18,480), Guadalupe
(18,900), Todos Santos (19,400), and Lqiez (19,680),
culminating point of South Bolivia. Lipez gives its
name to a transverse ridge, which closes the southern
extremity of the Titicaca-Aullagas depression, and thus
corresponds with the Vilcanota knot on the north side
of the same lacustrine basin.
The Cordillera de Cochahamba and the Eastern
Sierras
The region stretching east of the Cerro Tunari in the
direction of the plains presents an extremely rugged
aspect, although falling to a much lower level than the
great central plateau. In this " Bolivian Switzerland,"
as it has been called, the highest point appears to be the
Cerro de Potosi (15,400 feet), formerly a chief centre of
the silver-mining industry. Amid a chaos of precipitous
heights, detached crests and masses, thrown together
without any apparent order, it seems difficult to detect
any general plan. It results, however, from the rough
survey salready made, that the jagged sierras and short
ridges are mainly disposed in the same direction as the
two border ranges- — the northern Cordillera de Cocha-
bamba, which trends east and south-east, and the eastern
BOLIVIA 241
Misiones chain, whose outer escarpments rise like an
impassable rampart above the alluvial plains.
But the Andean system proper is still continued in
the direction of the Brazilian uplands by the Sierra
Chamaya, the Sierra Manaya skirting the right bank of
the Beni, the Cordillera de los Mosetenes, and several
other so-called " Little Andes " ramifying eastwards from
the Cochabamba heights. Still farther east the plains
about the southernmost sources of the Madeira are
diversified by a number of isolated gneiss masses, which
appear to have formerly belonged to the older Brazilian
system, from which they have been detached by the
erosive action of running waters. From the Indians
inhabiting their valleys they take the collective name of
the Chiquitos group, and are of some geographical interest,
because they stand at the nearest converging point of the
Andean and Brazilian orographic systems.
The Yungas Zone
This Chiquito district properly forms part of the
Yungas, which is the same word as the Peruvian Ymicas.
But whereas in Peru the Yuncas comprise the hot dry
coast-lands, the Bolivian Yungas, like the Peruvian Mon-
tana, is applied to all the hot, moist eastern slopes of the
Cordilleras merging in the wooded Amazonian plains. Both
terms are also extended to the natives of the respective
regions, and to that extent have acquired a somewhat
vague ethnical significance. Notwithstanding the op-
pressive heat and humidity, and the rank vegetation
of this trackless forest zone, the slopes and even the
plains watered by the Amazonian tributaries are said
to be singularly free from malarious fevers and
epidemics.
VOL. I K
242 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGIiAPHY AND TRAVEL
Hydrography
In Bolivia the drainage system is less complicated
than might be supposed from the large number of
streams traversing the Yungas zone in various directions.
Since the recent political changes there is no outflow
towards the Pacific Ocean, while the Alta Planicie
Central, that is, the " High Central Tableland," as the
great plateau is called, forms a closed basin with no
visible outlet, and is moreover a somewhat arid region,
with few and unimportant perennial streams. Hence it
is that all the rivers descending from the eastern slopes
find their way to the Atlantic Ocean either through the
Amazon or the Plate estuaries. It is further to be noted
that two only belong to the Plate system — the Parapiti
and the Pilcomayo — and that all the Amazonian affluents
reach the main stream not through independent channels,
but indirectly through the Madeira, largest of its southern
tributaries. It thus appears that, from the hydrographic
standpoint, the greater part of Bolivia is comprised
within the Madeira basin, whose three great western
head-streams — the Madre de Dios, Beni, and Eio G-rande —
collect all the surface-waters of the Yunoas district.
The Titicaca closed Lacustrine Basin
To the same fluvial system also formerly belonged the
now closed lacustrine basin, which is still flooded in the
north and centre by the already described lakes Titicaca
and AuUagas. This vast depression, which has a mean
breadth of 8 miles between the two main ranges, extends
for a total length of 5 miles from the Vilcanota to the
Lipez knot, and has an area of perhaps over 40,000
square miles. Hence when flooded it must have been the
BOLIVIA
243
largest lake, as well as the chief reservoir of the largest
river in the world. South of the Aullayas lauooii
nothing remains of the old lake except some saline
marshy tracts, or " pampas," as they are here called,
which occupy the lowest parts of the tableland, and are
fed by the Laca Ahuvra, flowing partly above and partly
under ground, south-westwards from AuUagas. Such
are the Pamixt de Coijxisa, and still farther south the
J-AKE TITICACA.
Pioivpa de Emfpeza, which according to the seasons are
alternately salt lagoons and dry or swampy plains. The
surface consists generally of a thick crust of }ture
crystallised and dazzling white common salt overlying an
underground lake, of which nothing can be seen except
where salt-works have been opened by the natives.
In the rainy season these pampas are often flooded to
a depth of 2 or 3 feet, and are then quite impassable,
but at other times may be safely crossed by avoiding
244 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TKAVEL
the deeper marshy parts. The whole of this southern
district, which lies at a considerably lower level than
Aullagas and about 1000 feet below Titicaca, is much
drier than the northern section of the tableland, and,
but for the difference of level, might be regarded as an
inland extension of the neighbouring Atacama desert.
In fact the district is often locally called the Desierto de
Lipez, from the transverse ridge enclosing the plateau on
the south.
The Madre de Dios and Beni Rivers
At present the divide between Titicaca and the
Amazon system stands 520 feet above the lake at the
La Paz gorge, through which the lacustrine basin
formerly found an outlet to the plains. But the great
river still draws some of its supplies from the eastern
slope of this divide, where the La Paz torrent rises on
the flanks of Illimani, and is soon after joined by the
Cotocayes, the Altamachi, and several other mountain
streams to form the Beni, one of the chief branches of
the Madeira. After a winding course of several hundred
miles through the Yungas district the Beni is joined on
its left bank below Carmen by the much longer and
more copious Madre de Dios, whose farthest head-stream,
the Inamhari, rises not far from the source of the Madidi,
one of the Beni affluents, and after skirting the escarp-
ments of the Carabaya range in Peru for some distance
in the direction of the north-west, as if to join the Eio
Purus, bends sharply round to the north-east. In fact
the Inamhari was long supposed to be the upper course
of the Purus, although the Incas had sent expeditions
down its banks and appear to have known that the
Mayu-Tata or Amaru-Mayo (" Snake river "), as they
called the Madre de Dios, really formed part of the Beni
BOLIVIA 245
system. But this fact was afterwards forgotten till the
year 18 60, when Faustino Maldonado floated down the
Madre de Dios to the Beni and the Madeira, where he
and some of his companions perished in the cataracts.
The doubts, which even still continued to prevail as
to the true relations, were not finally cleared up till
1884, when Armienta ascended from the Madeira and
Beni up the Madre de Dios to the point where it passes
from Peru into Bolivian territory, and found it a placid
navigable stream free of all obstructions and about 550
yards wide. At the Beni confluence, 20 miles above the
Madeira, it is over 1200 yards wide, but a little lower
down the navigation of the united stream, which retains
the name of the Beni, is interrupted by precipitous falls
30 feet high.
The Rio Grande and Mamor6
Far more extensive than the Beni is the Mamore
fluvial system, which with its widely-ramifying branches
fills up the whole of the alluvial plains between the
Bolivian and Brazilian uplands, communicates during
the floods with the upper affluents of the Paraguay, and
with some of its head-waters penetrates far into the
Cochabamba and Matto C4rosso ranges. Thus the Bio
Grande {Guapay), which by many geographers is regarded
as the true upper course of the Madeira itself, has its
source far to the south not a great way from Oruro on
the plateau between the Cordillera Eeal and the Cocha-
bamba range. After traversing the whole of the plateau
in a south-easterly direction, it sweeps round with a
magnificent bend to the north and north by west to the
Mojos plains, where there is a great meeting of the
waters locally known as the Junta de los Bios.
Here the Eio Grande is usually stated to take the
246 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
name of the Mamore, which it retains for the rest of its
course to the junction of the Itenez {Guapord) from Brazil
to form the Madeira. From this it might be supposed
that the Mamore is merely the lower course of the Eio
Grande, whereas it is an independent river which con-
verges with the Eio Grande, and its tributary the Piray
or Sard, jointly with the Yapacani, the Chimori, and the
Chapari at or about the Junta de los Eios, above the old
mission station of Loreto. All these affluents, which are
navigable by canoes nearly to their sources at the foot of
the Cochabamba range, merge at the Junta in a single
stream, which retains the name of the Mamore to the
Guapore confluence, although the Eio Grande is much the
longer branch, but so shallow that it is quite useless for
navigation. The true Junta, described as a magnificent
meeting of waters, is at the confluence of the Mamore, here
500 yards wide, with the Sara, the name given by the
natives to the united Eio Grande and Piray, the latter
flowing from the Santa Cruz district and joining the left
bank of the Eio Grande about 40 leagues above the Junta.
All these rivers are continually shifting their beds in
the forest region through which they flow. " They
undermine the banks on one side, which, falling away,
form the numerous curves on the convex side of which
the mud and sand brought down by the current is
deposited, and playas (shoals) and banks are formed on
which a forest grows in course of time. The river on
the concave side of the curve is continually causing the
trees of the terra fir ma to fall and obstruct the water-
way ; a barricade or palisada is formed, the river then
returns in exceptionally high floods to its old course on
the convex shore, bursting through the playas and sand-
banks, and so the ever-recurring changes of the river-
course continue. In illustration of this, I saw on the
BOLIVIA 247
Eiver Chapari a place where the current was breaking
down a bank that was apparently terra firma, and had
trees growing on it that were of great age. At the foot
of this bank, and under some 15 feet of earth, was a
deposit of timber, blackened, and, in fact, almost car-
bonised by time and pressure of the superincumbent
earth. Eroni the manner in wdiich these logs were
deposited, one above the other, it was evident that they
formed part of a huge collection of drift-wood, such as
may often be seen collected together in many parts of
the rivers." ^
The Mojos Lacustrine Depression
Above the Guapore confluence, where the united
stream takes the name of the Madeira, the Mamore with
its ramifying affluents traverses that part of the Yungas
zone which reaches its lowest level in the Mojos plains,
that is to say, the bed of the former inland sea, where
it was contracted to a relatively narrow sound between
the Andean and the Brazilian highlands. Here the
divide between the Amazon and Plate basins is still so
low that the waters of the head-streams are inter-
mingled during the rainy season, and after the subsidence
a number of shallow depressions either remain permanently
flooded or else form saline morasses, like the Coipasa and
Empeza pampas in the southern part of the Alta Planicie
Central.
These lacustrine formations are numerous, especially
in the level region between the middle courses of the
Beni and the Mamore, where the Boguaguado lagoon is
said to cover a space of several hundred square miles
even in the dry season. Owing to the same general lie
of the land the Bio Para'piti, which rises at the base of
1 E. D. Mathews, Up the Amazon and Madeira Rivers, p. 137.
248 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
the outer escarpments south of the Eio Grande bend,
winds with such a sluggish current eastwards in the
direction of the Paraguay that it seems at times to be
lost in marshy tracts, draining both to the Amazon and
Plate basins.
The Pilcomayo
Somewhat more decided, though still in places scarcely
perceptible, is the incline of the Bio Filcomayo, which,
although it has its source on the uplands close to that of
the Ptio Grande, belongs entirely, to the Plate system.
After forcing its way through several intervening ridges
to its junction with the Pilaya above San Francisco, it
flows across the Gran Chaco plains in a normal south-
easterly direction to Lambare, on the left bank of the Eio
Paraguay six miles below Ascencion, capital of Paraguay.
The numerous attempts made to determine the true
character of this great fluvial artery, which seemed to
possess such vital economic importance for the neigh-
bouring states of Bolivia, Argentina, and Paraguay, have
mostly been thwarted, as much by the impracticable nature
of the sluggish stream itself, as by the hostility of the
fierce Toba natives inhabiting its densely wooded and in
places half- submerged banks.
One of the most successful expeditions was that
carried out in 1890 by Lieut. 0. J. Storm, who, however,
was unable to ascend much more than 300 miles above
the confluence, in a steamer built for the purpose and
drawing only 8 inches when loaded. " The river," this
explorer tells us, " has an average width of 30 yards,
and its banks are 4 to 5 yards high, covered in some
parts with dense forests, while in others the aspect
changes into vast plains dotted with palms. There also
exist extensive swamps. The depth is very variable.
BOLIVIA 249
and entirely dependent on the rainfall. The course of
the Pileomayo is entirely tortuous, with very short and
sudden bends, making it difficult even for a small steamer
to wind her way through the overhanging trees from both
sides, and especially the numerous raigones (" snags ") offer
great obstacles and even dangers for the navigation. In
some parts the raigones are so abundant that the river-
bed at low vfater looks like a forest of dead trees. We
had to stop at every moment to cut our way through,
and at times the men were scarcely out of water the
whole day. It is all hard wood, and even the best axes
break." '
The main result of the expedition was that the
Pilcomayo, which has no regular or periodical rise or fall,
but only sudden freshets caused by sudden downpours, " is
not navigable for commercial purposes " {ih.). Its upper
course alone lies within Bolivian territory, beyond which
it serves for about 800 miles as the boundary between
Argentina and Paraguay.
Climate
As in the other Andean regions the climates are
determined far more by elevation than by latitude ; in
other words, they are disposed vertically rather than
horizontally. Thus, whatever the distance from the
equator, the mean annual temperature, which in the
Yungas zone stands at about 74° F. up to 2000 feet,
falls to 66° on the Cochabamba plateau (8000 to 8500
feet), and to 50° at La Paz and on the central tableland
(11,900 to 12,500 feet). Higher up, the slopes and
crests of both Cordilleras penetrate into an Arctic region,
which is uninhabitable even where not clothed with a
^ Geograph. Jour., January 1896, p. 84.
250 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
snowy mantle throughout the year. The severity of the
dry whiter season, from April to August, is somewhat
tempered on the Alta Planicie by the moderating action
of the great lake. But the most favoured zone, where
all the large towns and most of the settled populations
are concentrated, lies about the lower slopes of the Cor-
dillera Eeal and the Cochabamba plateau, between the
altitudes of 8000 and 10,000 feet, with a mean annual
temperature oscillating between 50° and 60° F.
This region is exposed to the dry south-east trade
winds, which have lost most of their moisture before
reaching the Bolivian uplands, and are followed by the
intermittent rains prevailing throughout the wet summer
season from November to February. But the rainfall is
on the whole less copious than on the more northern
slopes, which are exposed to the moist Atlantic winds
sweeping up the Amazon valley, and perhaps to this
cause, combined with the greater development of the
plateau formation, Bolivia may be indebted for its general
salubrity and relative immunity from epidemics, even on
the low-lying Yungas zone. Here the Coni valley, which
drains to the Chapari at the low level of about 950 feet
above the sea, and is covered with a less dense and
rank vegetation than the montana, enjoys a delightful
climate, where mosquitoes and other insect pests are less
troublesome, and " fever and ague are very little if at all
known." ^
Still more favoured is the Cochabamba region, which
" enjoys an almost perpetual summer, whilst the nights
are pleasantly cool, and therefore invigorating to consti-
tutions depressed by the humid heat of the Madeira and
Amazon valleys. There seems to be little difference all
the year round. Certain months have more rain than
' Mathews, p. 186.
BOLIVIA 251
others, but. even then the rain only falls in the shape of
good, heavy showers, lasting, perhaps, an hour or so,
when the sun breaks out again. A thoroughly wet day
is a great rarity in Cochabamba, although at higher and
lower altitudes, in the same parallel of latitude, such days
are of frequent occurrence, while the central plains of
Bolivia seem to have just a desirable amount of lainfall
and no more. Fever and ague are quite unknown, and
if sanitary matters were attended to, Cochabamba might
soon be free from diseases of any kind. But unfortunately
at present such sicknesses as small-pox and scarlet fever
are got rid of with difficulty, owing to the filthy habits
of at least four-fifths of the natives, who seem to be quite
without any notions of public cleanliness" (ih. p. 234).
Flora
But, if less abundant than in the north, the rainfall
still amply suffices to sustain a vegetation which for
exuberance and variety of forms is probably unsurpassed
in any part of the world. Its luxuriance is mainly due
to the natural fertility of the soil, while for the astonish-
ing number of distinct species Bolivia has to thank its
central position in the southern continent, which has
enabled it to attract immigrants from the Peruvian, the
Brazilian, and all the other surrounding vegetable zones.
Vast forest tracts, abounding in cabinet and dye-woods,
medicinal and other useful plants, are continuous along
the lower slopes and at the foot of the outer Cordilleras,
while some varieties of the ubiquitous palm family range
to great heights on the flanks of the Cochabamba
mountains.
Amongst the numerous useful vegetable products of
the Yungas district may be mentioned an excellent variety
252 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
of chinchona, and the copal tree, with its easily extracted
resin, by which the natives of the woodlands light up
their habitations. Coffee also of prime quality here
flourishes side hj side with rice, sugar-cane, pine-apples,
and coca, which, as in Peru, is extensively used by the
Indians of the uplands as a stimulant. The more open
savannahs farther south and east yield abundance of the
richest pasture, while European alimentary plants, such
as wheat, barley, and pulse, are found associated with the
indigenous maize and potatoes on the arable upland
tracts.
In the Mojos territory the old cocoa plantations, here
called " chocolatales," which were laid out by the Indians
under the guidance of the Jesuits 200 years ago, are stiU
kept up in the Exaltacion district and other parts. But
they are now claimed as Government property, and
farmed out to speculators, who make good profits, as the
plant needs very little attention, and thrives even if left
to itself. The chocolate from these plantations is quite
equal, if not even superior, to the highly-prized " Mera-
villa " of Venezuela, and when the communications are
improved will certainly form an important article of the
export trade with Europe.
On the uplands quinoa and potatoes are amongst the
most valuable alimentary plants. Quinoa is a small
grain about the size of millet, which, when boiled or
soaked, yields a gelatinous substance forming the staple
food of the Aymara Indians. Potatoes are largely con-
sumed in the form of chvMo, that is, sliced and cut into
cubes the size of dice and then exposed to the frosty
nights till they acquire a dry corky appearance. In
this state they keep any length of time, and are much
used with clnqj^ (soup), although considered tasteless by
most travellers.
BOLIVIA
253
From maize is obtained the national drink, cJiicha, of
which there are two varieties, chicha cocida (" boiled ")
and mascada (" chewed "), a concoction prepared, likQ the
Polynesian kava, by a process of mastication, and freely
taken by everybody, from the president down to the
humblest peasant.
Fauna
Bolivia, considering the rigorous climate, has no dearth
of indigenous animals on its lofty plateaux. The llama,
CAPYBARA.
alpaca, vicuna, guanaco, chinchilla, viscacha, are far from
exhausting the list. In the montana are the capybara,
a large rodent, the peccary, tapir, and many other useful
animals. Almost every form of South American bird-life
is met in the woodlands or on the uplands, amongst them
some lovely varieties of the humming-l)ird, frequenting the
highest slopes of the Cerro de Potosi over 14,000 feet
254 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
above sea-level. lu the Yungas district is met an in-
digenous species of stork, locally called hata, which stands
about 5 feet high, covers 8 feet 6 inches with its extended
wings, and has a curiously up-turned black beak about a
foot long. Its flesh makes excellent eating, although
this is, perhaps, a point of little consequence in a country
where nearly all beasts, birds, and fishes are indifferently
consumed not only by the aborigines but also by many
of the half-breeds.
On the highlands the llama is used as a pack animal,
and the alpaca for its wool. Both these valuable animals
are domesticated. The vicuna is wild, and roams freely
in herds of from four or five to forty or fifty, keeping
mainly to the central plateau. Here the characteristic
carrion birds are the condor, eagle, and vulture, which prey
upon the mules and other animals falling exhausted along
the caravan tracks. ''• Often, when riding over the Andes, a
huge dark shadow comes suddenly over the path, and the
traveller, looking upwards, sees the magnificent condor
floating in the bright sunlight, and rising to his resting-
place amongst the snow-clad peaks" {ib. p. 336). All
share in the same feast, precedence being taken by the
condor, who is followed in their turn by the eagle and
the vulture.-
Inhabitants— The Mojos
In Bolivia the transitions between the different
ethnical and cultural groups are perhaps less abrupt than
in most other parts of Spanish America. The natives
of the seaboard and of the uplands — Atacamenos, Aymaras,
and Quichuas — had all been organised in settled com-
munities by the conquering Incas, while the unreclaimed
aborigines of the eastern slopes and plains appear for the
most part to have always been farther removed from the
150LIVIA 255
savage state than the Chunchos and the other fierce wild
tribes of the Peruvian montana. Even those who, like
the Yuracar^s of the Mamore head -streams, are still
called harharos, are "much quieter and more tractable
than the mixed races of Brazil," and in fact are really
mansos, that is, " tame," being called barbaros only
" because they refuse to be baptized into the Eonian
Catholic Church." ^ Soon after the Spanish conquest
large numbers of the Yungas tribes proved highly
susceptible to humanising influences, and readily grouped
themselves in permanent and orderly communities round
about the missionary stations along the banks of the Eios
Beni, Mamore, Guapore, and their numerous affluents.
Two of these groups — the Mojos and the Chiquitos —
comprise each a great many separate tribes, speaking ten
or twelve different languages, yet all living in perfect
harmony and combining together for the common welfare.
The Mojos, who give their name to the old lacustrine
depression between the Beni and the Mamor^, had already
voluntarily submitted to the Inca Yupanqui, and were
afterwards gathered by the Jesuits into fifteen mission
villages, where they still number about 30,000.
Their Christianity, however, in which Catholic dogma
plays a very subordinate part, is sometimes associated
with some extremely rude and realistic observances.
Indian dances are allowed, at certain feasts, to be intro-
duced after the service of the mass.
These Mojos Indians are amongst the most orderly,
industrious, and intelligent inhabitants of the republic,
although treated worse than slaves by their Bolivian
masters. They are described as "a grave, sedate, and
thoughtful people," good husbandmen, skilful in the
use of the lasso, which they have adopted instead of the
1 Mathews, pp. 81 and 174.
256 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
bow and arrow, and are regarded as perhaps the most
expert boatmen in the whole of the Amazonian region.
They are met in this capacity at all the riverine ports as
far as Manaos on the north side of the Amazon, and are
everywhere highly esteemed and trusted by the white
traders. Although their arithmetic gets no farther than
the numerals 4 or 5, the Mojos are amongst the few
South American peoples who were credited with a writing
system, which, however, consisted of nothing more than
a few simple strokes drawn on wooden tablets.
The Chiquitos
More rudimentary even than the Mojo numeral system
is that of the Chiquitos, some of whom appear to have
no terms for the ciphers beyond one} Yet they are a
bright, intelligent people, more cheerful than the Mojos,
and equally industrious. Their collective Spanish name,
Chiquitos, meaning " Little Folk," does not refer directly
to their stature (though that is short, averaging about
5 feet or less), but to the circumstance that when the
whites first invaded their territory they found the door-
ways of the huts so very low that the natives who had
fled to the woods were supposed to be dwarfs.
The Chiquitos, who occupy the district about the
head-waters of the Kio Guapore in Brazil, and parts of
the province of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in Bolivia,
have developed a sort of communistic or co-operative
system, which works better than similar systems in
more civilised lands. The produce of their cotton and
sugar-cane crops is sold for the benefit of the community,
1 Even etama, the word used for one, really means "alone," one object
taken apart from the rest (Dr. L. L. Conant, The Numeral Concept : Its
Origin and Development, 1896V
BOLIVIA 257
and a fund is thus formed for the relief of the infirm and
aged. For reducing the sugar they make their own
copper boilers, and also ply several other trades, such as
straw-plaiting, weaving, and dyeing. When they foncy
striped trousers, rows of white and yellow cotton are
planted, and when blue is fashionable, a row of indigo is
added. Coffee, cacao, and vanilla are also grown, and
the Chiquitos, who trouble themselves little about politics,
may claim to rank amongst the most useful citizens of
the adjacent republics.
Their happy, light-hearted disposition, shown by a
constant round of visits accompanied by much music and
revelry, is all the more remarkable, since the position of
their territory about the Spanish and Portuguese frontiers
exposed them to endless troubles during the lawless times
of the colonial regime. First attacked and butchered by
the ferocious adventurer, Alvarez, surnamed Cabeza de
Vaca (" Cow -Head"), they were next raided from the
Portuguese side by the Paolistas in quest of slaves for
the mines and plantations of Brazil, and then plundered
from the opposite quarter by the Spanish traders of Santa
Cruz de la Sierra. Even the Jesuits, who came to evan-
gelise them in the seventeenth century, were accompanied
by small-pox and other epidemics which threatened to
exterminate the whole nation. Yet they still survive, to
the number of certainly over 20,000, divided into as
many as forty distinct tribes speaking about a dozen
different languages.
The Chiriguanos
Still more numerous are the Chiriguanos, a large
branch of the Guarani race, who have from remote times
been separated by wide spaces from the kindred people
of Brazil and Paraguay. A considerable section are
VOL. I y
Z0» COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
settled as nominal Christians in the stations along both
sides of the Eio Grande. The bulk of the nation
are still in the wild state, roaming the forests right up
to the foot of the Bolivian Andes. But even these
children of nature bear a good character, and have the
reputation of being of industrious habits, and good stock-
breeders. They also till the land in some districts, and
even seek employment in various capacities amongst the
settled populations. The Chiriguanos were formerly
noted for their strict observance of the strange custom
of the Couvade, which is prevalent amongst so many of
the South American aborigines.
The Bolivians — Historic Retrospect
Of the civilised ruling classes, some are of pure Spanish
descent, while many are Mestizoes. Their country, in
colonial times, was the Presidency of Upper Peru or
Charcas.
Upper Peru was under the Peruvian Viceroyalty until
1776, when it was transferred to Buenos Ayres. After
the Independence it was formed into a separate republic
with the name of Bolivia, in honour of Bolivar, the
Colombian General. His lieutenant, General Sucre, was
the first President, 1826-28. Santa-Cruz, a pure Indian,
established a firm administration from 1829 to 1839.
He was a man of undoubted ability and enlightened
views. Unfortunately he was also ambitious, and his
interference in the internal affairs of Peru in 1836
ended Id irretrievable disaster. After his decisive
victories over the Peruvian generals, Gamarra and
Salaverry, he united the two republics in a confederacy
based on an offensive and defensive alliance, which was
aimed especially at the aggressive policy of Chile.
BOLIVIA 259
The challenge was accepted by that State, which
invaded Peru, seized the capital, and not only over-
threw Santa Cruz himself with great slaughter at the
battle of Yungai in 1838, but also broke up the Con-
federacy by sowing dissensions between the two allies.
The tide of invasion was now directed against Bolivia,
and although Gamarra was again defeated, Santa Cruz
was not restored to power, because accused by his enemies
of aiming at a dictatorship, or even at royalty itself
Since the retirement of Santa Cruz, Ballivian (1841-47)
and Linares (1857-61) have been enlightened rulers;
and since 1880 four presidents have served their regular
terms of four years. The best of these was General
Campero, 1880-84.
Topography — Railway Projects
In 1828 the constitutional capital of Bolivia was
declared to be Chuquisaca, or Sucre. The actual capital
and centre of trade is La Paz. The subjoined table shows
that there are other towns, with 10,000 inhabitants and
upwards, nearly all situated either on the central plateau or
in the healthy upland zone east of the Cordillera Pieal : —
La Paz . . . 45,000
Sucre . . . 26,000
Cochabaniba . 25,000
Potosi . . . 20,000
Oruro . . . 15,000
Santa Cruz . . 11,000
Huanchaca . . 10,000
Tarija . . . 10,000
Of these places two only — Oruro and Huanchaca —
stand on the central tableland, and these are consequently
amongst the most elevated towns in Bolivia. Oruro,
which figures largely in the local records, claimed to be,
next to Potosi, the largest city in the whole of the present
Bolivia during the seventeenth century, when the popula-
tion approached 80,000. It stands at an altitude ot
260 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
11,720 feet at the northern extremity of Lake Aullagas,
not far from the now exhausted or abandoned silver-
mines to which its prosperity was due. The neighbour-
ing tin-mines are still worked, and the output has even
been increased since the extension of the Huanchaca
railway to Oruro. Huanchaca, till lately an obscure
hamlet 13,500 feet above sea-level, lies due south of
Oruro in a rich argentiferous district, overlooking the
saline plains of the Pampa de Empeza.
Mining operations have been greatly stimulated by
the completion of the Chilian trunk line from Anto-
fagasta on the coast to Huanchaca, and at present this
district yields more silver ores than all the rest of
Bolivia. The railway is eventually to be continued from
Oruro along the western foot of the Cordillera Eeal and
round the shores of Lake Titicaca to Puno, where a
junction will be effected with the Central Peruvian
system.
On the eastern slope of the Cordillera by far the
most important place, although not the present capital,
is the famous city of Nuestra Senora de la Paz (" Our
Lady of Peace "), which was so named by its founder,
Alonzo de Mendoza towards the middle of the sixteenth
century, but was re-named La Paz dc Ayacucho (" The
Peace of Ayacucho"), after the decisive battle of Ayacucho,
which was to secure peace to the country by the
expulsion of the Spaniards.
La Paz stands 12,470 feet above the sea, under the
shadow of Illimani, at the source of a stream which flows
to the Beni >through the cleft in the Cordillera Eeal, by
which Lake Titicaca formerly communicated with the
Amazon fluvial system. It is proposed again to pierce
the narrow sill at the head of the gorge now separating
the two Ijasins, for the purpose of bringing the city into
BOLIVIA
2H1
direct connection with the projected Oruro-Puno railway,
and thus giving it access by the Chilian and Peruvian
main lines to the Pacific at Antofagasta and Mollendo.
But these projects await the establishment of a govern-
ment strong enough to attract the capital needed for
their execution.
Sorata, at the head of the Eio Sorata, one of the
numerous auriferous ahluents of the Beni which take
LA PAZ DE AYACUCHO.
their rise on the eastern slope of the Cordillera between
Illimani and Illampu, is at present an attractive health
resort, much frequented by the citizens of La Paz. But
the name is still remembered in connection with one of
the most tragic incidents that took place during the
widespread revolt of the Indians against their Spanish
oppressors in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
A large number of whites from the surrounding districts
had taken refuge in Sorata, where they hoped to hold
262 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
out till relieved by the forces engaged in stamping out
the revolt. But the insurgents, instead of coming to
close quarters, adopted the novel device of constructing
a large reservoir above the town and then removing the
dam, with the result that the whole place, with its over-
crowded streets and houses, was swept away in a deluge
of slush and water.
On the extremely fertile and salubrious plateau
watered by the head-streams of the Eio Grande is^
situated the large city of Cochabamba, which gives its
name to the Cochabamba range. It is the chief agri-
cultural and industrial centre in Bolivia, and one-fourth
of the whole trade of the country is concentrated in this
flourishing district. The chief industries are cotton and
woollen spinning, tanning, brewing, soap and starch
works, while the rich soil yields heavy crops of wheat
and other cereals.
Beyond the Cochabamba range the entrance to the
plains is guarded by the outpost of Santa Cruz de la
Sierra, a name familiar to all travellers and explorers in
those low-lying borderlands between the Brazilian and
Andean highlands. Thanks to the navigable waters of
the neighbouring Eio Mamore, and the well-known tracks
radiating in all directions over the land, Santa Cruz has
long been the headquarters of the exploring expeditions,
which have happily succeeded the former raiding in-
cursions into the Chiquitos territory, Paraguay, and the
West Brazilian wilds.
On the uplands drained by the head-streams of the
Pilcomayo stand the renowned but now decayed cities of
Potosi and Sucre, the latter since 1894 capital of the
republic Potosi, whose mining operations at one time
controlled the money markets of the world, was in the
seventeenth century the largest city in the whole of
BOLIVIA 263
America, with a somewhat fluctuating population of
from 100,000 to 160,000. Thus was, at least, for a
time, jus tilled the proud title of Villa Imi^erial bestowed
upon it by its founders in 1545. Its better known
name is taken from the lofty Cerro de Potosi (15,400
feet), from which it derived its fame and prosperity, and
which has been described as a " silver " peak.
But the almost incredibly rich argentiferous lodes,
pierced in all directions by deep-sunk shafts and lateral
galleries, could not last for ever, especially after most
of the 5000 subterranean passages had subsided when
the lowest pits became flooded with water. Some of
the mines are, no doubt, still worked, but their yearly
output of about £150,000 is scarcely one-seventh
of their former yield. This must have averaged con-
siderably over £1,000,000 for the 300 years, which,
according to some estimates, yielded a total sum of
about £340,000,000.
Standing at the tremendous altitude of 13,325 feet
above the sea, within 2000 feet of the summit of the
Cerro, Potosi enjoys the unenviable distinction of being
absolutely the highest abode of man in the southern
continent. It lies, in fact, several hundred feet above
the strictly inhabitable zone, in a region where the
atmosphere is so rarefied that most of the children either
die soon after birth, or else never acquire the faculties of
sight and hearing. So greatly does the mortality exceed
the birth-rate that tlie population can be maintained
only by a constant inflow of adults attracted to the few
mines still kept open. When the last of these is closed,
Potosi, with its sumptuous monuments, already disused
mint, and aqueducts far beyond the requirements of its
present inhabitants, will be entirely deserted, and to
future generations its extensive ruins may prove as great
264 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
a wonder as those of Tiahuanaco now do to the few way-
farers wandering over the scarcely inhabitable southern
shores of Titicaca.
At a short distance to the north-east of Potosi, but at
a much lower elevation (8860), Sucre, the present ephe-
meral capital of the republic, occupies a pleasant and
healthy position close to the Cachamayo head-stream of
the Pilcomayo. It stands on the site of the old Indian
settlement of Chuquisaca {Chuquicliaca), that is, the
" Golden Bridge," now re-named Sucre, in honour of the
general who gained the great victory of Ayacucho over
the last of the royalists. In the halcyon days of the
mining industry, when Potosi was minting the currency
of half the civilised world, Sucre served as a health
resort for its sickly inhabitants. At present it owes its
prosperity, not to the mineral but to the vegetable
kingdom, the surrounding district being one of the most
fertile in the State. A curious local industry is the
preparation of argillaceous bon-bons, which are sucked
like liquorice-sticks, without any injurious effects, if used
in moderation. All over these uplands " clay dumplings
and potatoes " are a favourite dish, and we know that
other edible earths are largely consumed by many of the
aborigines both in South America and in Africa, but not
everywhere with impunity.
On a tributary of the Berraejo, which takes its rise
within the Bolivian frontier, stands the outpost of Tarija,
a place which in recent years has acquired some notoriety
as a convenient refuge of " politicians out of ofl&ce," and
other turbulent citizens of the neighbouring Argentine
republic. The district is more favourably noted for its
excellent soil, which yields magnificent crops of cereals,
vegetables, and fruits of all kinds. As on the Cocha-
bamba plateau, the herbage is extremely nutritious, so
BOLIVIA 265
that in the whole of this region there is a great future
for the stock-breeding industry.
Eesources — Minerals — Vegetable Products —
Despite the loss of the rich mineral districts of the
Pacific slope, wirested from her by Chile, Bolivia still
possesses in the Huachaca and Oruro mines some of the
most productive argentiferous lodes in the world. Here
the ores contain nominally from a tenth to a fifteenth
part, and exceptionally as much as one-half or even three-
quarters of pure metal. In 1896 nearly 1,500,000
pounds weight of silver were exported, and the output
will certainly increase with the development of railway
enterprise on the Central plateau.
Next in importance to silver are the tin beds, which
occur at short intervals all along the east side of the
same region, and thence southwards nearly to the
Argentine and Chilian frontiers. These beds are found
especially in the trachitic porphyries and other plutonic
rocks, which crop out through the older schists, and in
some places the ores consist of more or less pure metal.
In 1892 the total yield of 8670 tons was valued
at £512,000. Copper also abounds, especially in the
La Paz district, where the famous Corocoro and Chacarilla
mines contain ores with as much as 85 per cent of pure
metal. In the same year, 1892, the value of the copper
output exceeded £90,000.
Gold is widely diffused, but nowhere in large quanti-
ties, except perhaps in some of the imperfectly surveyed
auriferous reefs in the province of Santa Cruz. Gold
quartz veins of surpassing richness are also said to occur
on a branch of the Eio Baure or Blanco, which flows
en1;irely through Bolivian territory to the left bank of
266 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
the Gruapore. Salt abounds in the southern provinces,
but coal and iron appear to be rare, althougli carboni-
ferous beds are reported in the Titicaca basin. Platinum,
antimony, bismuth, and arsenic also figure amongst the
minerals, the total annual yield of which averages about
£2,500,000.
On the uplands wheat, barley, and other cereals of
good quality are raised, but in quantities insufficient to
supply the local demand. The same remark applies to
the produce of the lower and warmer zones, which are
well suited for the cultivation of maize, cotton, tobacco,
coca, coffee, sugar, and even wine. But the development
of the agricultural industry is everywhere retarded by
the lack of good communications.
Of forest products the most important have hitherto
been chinchona and rubber. The latter, especially since
about the year 1880, has engaged the attention of
foreign speculators to the neglect of almost all other
economic growths. In Bolivia the rubber-yielding plant
is the Siphonia {S. elastica), of which there are three
distinct varieties growing to a height of 50 or 60 feet.
In recent years the enterprising traders engaged in this
industry have indirectly helped more than any other
class to open up the country, to survey its navigable
waters and promote geographical research in all directions.
Communications
But all real progress is arrested by the lack of good
communications in almost every part of the republic.
In the Yungas zone the routes traversing the woodlands
and more open pampas are merely bridle-paths, while the
numerous navigable affluents of the Madeira are frequented
only by the canoes of the Mojos and other aborigines.
BOLIVIA 267
Even the highways between such important places as
Cochabamba and Sucre are in the same wretched state as
they were some forty years ago, when Don Eafael
Bustillo described Bolivia as a region seated upon the
masses of silver of the double Andean range, a territory
fertile beyond measure, where the treasures of the most
opposite climates were grouped together, " but perishing
from consumption for want of means of communication,
which might carry to the markets of the world her valu-
able productions, and stimulate her sons to labour and
industry."
Administration
By the present constitution, which dates only from
October 1880, the executive is vested in a President
elected by popular vote for four years, and not eligible
for re-election. The legislative functions are entrusted to
a Congress of eighteen Senators and sixty-four Deputies,
both elected by the suffrage of all adults who can read and
write, the former for six the latter for four years. The
President is assisted by two Vice-Presidents and a
Cabinet of five ministers.
Although the Eoman Catholic is the State religion,
a measure of tolerance is extended to other forms of
worship, at least in those districts where it would be
difficult to enforce conformity.
Primary instruction is free and in principle obliga-
tory. Yet in 1896 there were only 506 primary schools
attended by less than 33,000 pupils, besides 10 secondary
schools and colleges with 2140 scholars. On the other
hand, there are no less than six " universities," generally
with three faculties (law, medicine, and divinity), and a
collective attendance of 1900 students. For the settled
Indian communities there are 70 schools conducted by
268 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
the padres, besides 34 mission stations with 160 schools
supported partly by the State, partly by the provinces.
It is pleasant to read that in the Mojos missions " all
who have done service in the churches as sacristans and
choristers are able to write ; they also can read music,
for which they use the ordinary five-line system. There
are small schools in all the principal Indian villages, in
which reading, writing, and Catholic prayers are taught
in the Castilian language ; and I was rather surprised
to see the amount of rudimentary knowledge that is
drilled into the Indians, who as a race are not at all
deficient in natural intellect." ^
For the administration of justice there are a Supreme
Court in the capital, eight district courts, and the courts
of the local magistrates.
Besides a regular force of 1500 men there is a
national guard, in which all citizens are liable to serve.
According to the conscription law of 1892 military
service is compulsory in the standing army, the reserve
and extraordinary" reserve.
1 Mathews, p. 127.
To {woe poffe 268.
GO
'SjupiA,
BOLIVIA
CHAPTEE IX
CHILI
Extent — Boundary Questions — Area — Population — Physical Features —
The Central Plain — The "Western Cordillera — The Cordillera de los
Andes — Mercedario, Aconcagua, Tupungato — The Southern Andes —
Igneous and Glacial Phenomena — The Chilian Archipelagoes —
Magellan Strait — Tierra del Fuego — King Charles South Land — Mas
a Fuera ; Juan Fernandez — Hydrography — The Chilian Coast Streams
— Lakes — Climate — Flora — Fauna — Inhabitants — The Araucauians —
The Fuegians — Yahgans and Alacalufs — The Chilians — Topography —
Pi,ail\vay Enterprise — Natural Resources- — Agricultural and Mineral
Wealth — Land Tenure — Emigration — Administration.
Extent — Boundary Questions — Area — Population
Chili or Chile, which by a curious concideuce has in
Quichuan the same meaniug as the English word chilly,
was the name given by the Incas to the coast region
stretching for an unknown distance southwards beyond
the river Maule, — southern boundary of their empire. At
present the same term, expanding with the northern and
southern expansion of the Chilian State since the estab-
lishment of its independence in 1818, covers the whole
of the Pacific seaboard between 20° and 55° S. lat., that
is to say, from the Peruvian frontier nearly to the ex-
tremity of Tierra del Fuego. But it extends scarcely
anywhere much more than 100 miles inland, so that
270 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
with a mean breadth of perhaps not more than 70
miles the total length falls little short of 3000 miles.
Such an extraordinary conformation, for which no parallel
can elsewhere be found, would be impossible in the case
of a completely land-locked State, but is an element, not
of weakness but of strength, for Chili, which, thanks to
the vast development of its coast-line, has easily acquired
the command of the neighbouring seas, and thus become
one of the most vigorous and aggressive powers in the
Xew World.
Landwards Chili is conterminous only with Peru and
Bolivia, where the frontiers have already been described,
and with Argentina, where the frontiers, badly defined
by more than one convention, are still a subject of litiga-
tion at several points. By a mutual agreement the
whole question was referred for arbitration in 1898 to
Queen Victoria, whose decision is still pending.
As soon as the two States began to extend their sway
towards the extremity of the Continent, a clash of
interests became inevitable in the hitherto unoccupied
regions of Patagonia and Fuegia. By the convention of
1881, the crest of the Andes, regarded as the divide
between the Atlantic and Pacific basins, was taken as
the political divide between the two States from their
first point of contact as far as 52° S. lat. Then the
line w"as made to coincide with the same parallel as far
as 70° W. long., from which point it was deflected
slightly to the south so as to strike Cape Dungeness on
the north side of the Atlantic entrance to Magellan
Strait. In Fuegia the parting-line followed the meridian
of 68° 34' from Cape Espiritu Santo to Beagle Channel,
all the islands south of which were assigned to Chili.
Thus Cape Horn fell to Chili, and Staten Island to
Argentina, while Magellan Strait was declared neutral
CHILI 271
and free to all flags, and all this part of the convention
holds good for both contracting parties.
Not so the mainland, where it was soon discovered
that at several points the crest of the Andes in no way
coincided with the water-parting between the two oceans.
Thus the exploration of the Eio Aysen carried out by
Dr. Steffan and others in 1897 showed that, like other
recently surveyed Pacific Coast streams, this river " has
its sources far to the east of the principal chain of the
Andes, its basin stretching over the comparatively level
country traversed by the eastern sub-Andean ridges."^
Here the water-parting "seems to run, in the north,
between the Aysen and Lakes Fontana and La Plata," and
in the south at a considerable distance beyond the
farthest point reached by the expedition on the southern
arm of the Aysen, named by Dr. Steffen and his com-
panions Eio Simpson " (ib.). On the other hand, the
divide in some districts approaches so near to the
Pacific that wei^e it followed the Patagonian part of
Chili would be cut into a number of practically isolated
sections. To remedy this, another convention made in
1893 took as the political divide the water-parting in
the main chain of the Andes, so that the frontier,
instead of coinciding with the so-called continental
divide, would have to cross the rivers flowing from the
easternmost crests of the main Andean range. But when
the new boundary came to be laid down fresh difticulties
firose, which are now the subjects of arbitration.
Whatever may be the decision of the arbiter, it can
affect only to a small extent the actual area of Chili,
which, including all the territory wrested by the war of
1879-81 from Peru and Bolivia, falls just short of
294,000 square miles, with a population of perhaps
^ Geogr. Jour. February 1898, p. 184.
272
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
2,800,000, although by the defective census of 1895
returned at only 2,712,000, distributed as under over
the twenty-three provinces and single territory of the
republic : —
Provinces.
Area
in Sq. Miles.
Population.
Tacna 8,685
24,160
Tarapaca
19,300
89,751
Antofagasta
60,968
44,085
Atacama
43,180
59,712
Coquimbo
12,950
160,898
Aconcagua
5,840
113,165
Valparaiso .
1,637
220,756
Santiago
5,223
415,636
O'Higgins
2,524
85,277
Colchagua
3,795
157,566
Cnrico .
2,913
103,242
Talca .
3,678
128,961
Linares
3,588
101,858
Maule .
2,933
119,791
Nuble .
3,556
152,935
Concepcion
3,535
188,190
Bio-Bio
. 4,158
101,768
Malleco
2,856
98,032
Cautin .
3,126
78,221
Arauco .
4,248
59,237
Valdivia
8,315
60,687
Llanquihue
. 7,823
78,315
Chiloe .
3,995
77,750
Magallanes (Ter.) ■
. 75,292
5,170
Total
293,970
2,712,145
At present (1900) the actual population still falls
short of 3,000,000, including about 50,000 full-blood
Indians, chiefly Araucanians, and nearly 100,000 for-
eigners. As shown by the subjoined table, contingents
from various parts of the civilised world have in recent
years been attracted in considerable numbers to the
Chilian republic by the inducements held out to per-
manent settlers on the land, although trade and the
CHILI
273
industries are far from being as flourishing as would
appear from ofdcial representations : —
Peruvians
Bolivians
Argentines
Germans .
English .
French .
Italians .
40,000
16,000
10,000
8,000
6,000
5,000
5,000
Spaniards
Swiss
Chinese .
Americans
Australians
Scandinavians
Total
3,000
2,000
2,000
1,000
750
500
99,250
Physical Features — The Central Plain
AVitiiin the present Chilian domain is included the
whole of that section of the Andes which is disposed in
the direction from south to north, and comprises about
one-half of the entire length of the system, measured from
Fuegia to the Atrato. Thus Arica, where tlie system
begins to bend round to the north-west, and where the
Chilian section terminates, lies under 19° S. lat., that is
to say, allowing for the curvature of the northern section,
stands about midway between Magellan Strait (55° S.)
and the Gulf of Darien (9° N.).
On an ordinary map of the southern continent the
narrow Chilian half of the system looks like a mere
strip of coast-lands traversed by a single mountain range,
so that it is difficult at first sight to understand that
here also the double formation — Coast Kange and Andes
proper, with the intervening plateau and cross-ridges
— is maintained, though not throughout the entire
length of 3000 miles, between Peru and Fuegia. But
in Chili proper, apart from the territory lately wrested
from Bolivia, the outer Cordillera almost disappears at
both ends, in the north by erosion or possible subsidence,
in the south by actual submersion beneath the waters of
the Pacific, though even here it is still represented by
VOL. I T
274 COMPENDIUxM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
the insular chains fringing the coast from Chiloe to
South Fuegia.
But in the central region the outer range stands out
conspicuously, especially when viewed from the sea, and
maintains a considerable elevation for about 700 miles
between 30° and 40° S. lat. Here is develojaed the
great central valley of Chili proper, which is enclosed
between the outer and inner ranges, and in and about
which, as on the corresponding Alta Planicie of Bolivia,
are situated the capital, Santiago, with its flourishing
seaport, Valparaiso, and most of the large centres of
population.
The Western Cordillera
In the old Bolivian provinces, where the Western
Cordillera forms the divide between the Pacific and the
closed Titicaca-Aullagas Ijasin, the range is surmounted
or flanked by several snowy summits of igneous oiigin
and of great altitude. Such are Tacora (19,800 feet),
source of the Maure, which flows to the Desaguadero ;
Chipicani (20,000 ?), dominating tlie Hucdlillas Pass,
which is itself nearly 14,000 feet high; Pomarape
(20,500), which still emits smoke; Parinacota (20,950)
and Hucdlatiri (19,720), near Lake Chungarra. Farther
south the Western Cordillera, whose loftiest peaks,
Yahricoya and Tata Yaetura, scarcely fall below 17,000
feet, develops east of Iquique a table-like fijrmation, and
is consequently locally known as La Mesa.
In the Atacama region, a little farther south, this
formation breaks into a number of relatively low ridges,
mostly running north and south, rising above 10,000 feet
in the Caracoles ("shell") heights, but falling to less
than 5000 feet on Jllount Trigo on the coast, about 25°
S. lat. Beyond this point the western system can no
CHILI 275
longer be distinctly followed till it again rises to a height
of 6000 or 7000 feet in the ridge west of Chacahiico
between Valparaiso and Santiago. This ridge, cul-
minating in Mount Colligiiai (7320 feet), south-east of
Valparaiso, is pierced by a number of easy passes, which
represent the gorges through which the lacustrine waters
formerly flooding the central Chilian plain were dis-
charged westwards to the Pacific. In this respect the
southern depression presents a striking contrast to the
Titicaca basin, which, as already seen, sent its overflow
eastwards to the Atlantic.
Farther south the coast system decreases continually
in height through the Nahuelhuta range (5000 feet) in
the Araucanian territory to the Cordillera Eelada and
other low ridges in the province of Valdivia, all of which
fall below 3000 feet. It was in this region that Darwin
and some other observers were led to infer a general
upheaval of the seaboard from the terrace formations
resembling old marine beaches, and the beds of marine
shells, all now standing at considerable elevations above
the present sea-level. But the point has been contested,
and while some attribute the terraces at the issue of old
river valleys to the erosive action of running waters,
others suggest that the shell-heaps may be mere kitchen-
middens accumulated by the al)origines in a region which
is now known to have been inhabited since Pleistocene
times. In Fuegia and on the Atlantic side (Brazil and
Argentina) such middens exist in great numbers, and are
often of prodigious size. One explored by Dr. Lovisato
in Elizabeth Island, although greatly eroded by the surf, is
still nearly a mile long, and presents many indications of
vast antiquity. In any case the upheaval can scarcely
have been so general as formerly supposed, because
signs of the opposite phenomenon of sul)sidence have
276 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
been observed in one of the neighbouring Chonos
Islands.
Beyond the province of Valdivia the Coast Eange
disappears altogether, or perhaps it would be more correct
to say, here breaks into a long chain of islands, which,
beginning with Chiloe, skirt the seaboard to the extremity
of the Continent, and are continued in a graceful curve
through the South Fuegian groups round to Staten
Island, where the Andean lands appear to terminate.
Corresponding with the break up or subsidence of the
Western Cordiller^ is the continuous southward incline
of the great Chilian central valley down to sea level.
Contracting here and there to mere gorges or level glens,
the central plains develop in Valdivia a series of lacustrine
basins — Galafquen, Huanche, Banco, Llanquilhue —
through which they merge at last in the inner waters,
fjords, sounds, and inlets flowing between the mainland
and the line of outer archipelagoes. Some of these
channels penetrate far inland, others expand into wide
passages, such as the G-ulfs of Corcovado and Penas,
Nelson and Magellan Straits, and Beagle Channel, by
which the long chain of fringing islands is disposed in
a number of more or less distinct insular groups.
The Cordillera de los Andes
Behind and above all these outer formations — coast
ranges, lateral ridges, central plains, archipelagoes, and
waterways — the Cordillera de los Andes, properly so
called, forms a magnificent background, running without
interruption for some 3000 miles along the eastern
frontier, with numerous peaks towering many thousand
feet above the snow -line, and in mighty Aconcagua
possibly reaching the culminiiting point of the New
CHILI 277
World. But, like the central valley and the coast range,
the great Cordillera also falls generally in the direction
of the south. A good sectional map of the whole sys-
tem shows that, after maintaining a mean altitude of
about 15,000 feet in the north, where Ccpiarpo, Bonete,
Mercedario, Aconcagua, Twpungato, and some other peaks
rise to and above 20,000 feet between the parallels of
27° and 34° S. ; the main axis has in the south an
average height of scarcely more than 8000 feet, with
very few peaks rising above 10,000 or 11,000 feet.
The Cordillera, interrupted by Magellan Strait in the
wedge-shaped peninsula terminating with Cape Froward
at the extremity of the Continent, reappears in the main
island of Fuegia, where Mounts Sarmiento (6910 feet),
Darwin (6800) and the Three Brothers (1640), all lying
north of Beagle Channel, seem undoubtedly to belong to
the Andean system proper.
In the Chilian section of the system both igneous and
glacial phenomena prevail to a far greater extent than in
Bolivia or Peru. Most of the cones, however, are either
quiescent or quite extinct, while some of the loftiest,
including both Aconcagua and Tupungato, have lost all
traces of their former craters. In the northern section,
between the Bolivian frontier and Coquimbo, that is, along
the eastern edge of the Atacama region, are concentrated
over thirty extinct or dormant volcanoes, such as Lhd-
layacu (21,650 ?), Antofalla (20,900), Socompa (19,600),
Azupe de Gopiapo (19,700) and others exceeding 17,000
feet. South of Copiapo the main range develops a
plateau formation, which is crossed by relatively low
passes, such as the Portezuelo de Come Cahallos (14,530
feet), leading to the mining district of Famatina in
Argentina. In summer the pa/rnpas, as the level open
tracts are locally called, afford easy communication between
278 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TRAVEL
the interior of the Continent and the seaboard. But in
winter they are difficult and even dangerous to cross,
owing to the prevailing high gales, accompanied by
intense cold, these exposed uplands offering scarcely any
shelter to the wayfarer.
Mercedario — Aconcagua — Tupungato
Beyond the transverse Sierra de Dona Ana, which
terminates near the coast in the Pajonal group (6720
feet), the main range is again crossed by the still lower
Aznfre Pass (11,970 feet) at a point where it approaches
within 60 or 70 miles of the Pacific. But south of this
break the whole system, here deflected to south by east,
receives its greatest lateral and vertical expansion between
the parallels of 31° and 34' S. in the provinces of
Valparaiso and Santiago. Here are developed several
elevated lateral ridges which occupy a considerable space
Ijoth in Central Chili and in the neighbouring Argentine
provinces of San Juan and Mendoza, and are surmounted
by some of the loftiest peaks and cones in the New^
World. Such are the Gerro del Mercedario, which has
not yet been ascended, but has an estimated height
of 22,320 feet; Aconcagua (23,080), and Tupungato
(22,000), both of which were for the first time scaled by
Mr. S. M. Vines of the FitzGerald expedition in 1897.
These giants are long-extinct volcanoes, although now
showing no trace of their terminal craters, which stood
one or more thousand feet above the present summits.
By his ascent of Aconcagua, which lies about midway
between its two rivals — 40 or 50 miles south of
Mercedario and north-west of Tupungato, 70 north-east
of Santiago and nearly 100 from the Pacific — Mr. Vines
may claim to have reached the greatest height yet
CHILI 279
attained, with certainty, by any human being. At such
an altitude protracted existence is impossible, and even
4000 feet lower down the explorers suffered intensely
from the exhausting effects of the puna, as the saroche or
'•' mountain sickness " is locally called. " I remember,"
says Mr. Vines, " the first morning after my arrival at this
high camp [19,000 feet], Mr. FitzGerald set to work to
do the cooking, which consisted of making some coffee —
we did not want anything more. He told me to go and
get the water for the coffee ; this consisted of taking a
biscuit-tin and filling it with snow and ice, exactly 10
yards distant from where I stood, near the fire. The
guy-ropes of the tent stood in my way. I stepped over
one of them with one foot and waited, and then I dragged
the other leg after the first, and so on, until I reached
the spot. I was ten minutes gone, and when 1 got back
I had just enough snow and ice to wet the bottom of the
kettle." '
Aconcagua, formerly assumed to stand in or on the
border of Chili, is now- included in Argentina, in accord-
ance with the latest agreements between the Argentine
and Chilian Conmiissioners, F. P. Moreno and Barras
Arana. Mr. FitzGerald, who approached it from the
east (Mendoza) side, describes the High Andes as here
running north and south in three great parallel ranges.
But there are only two, the Tigj^e in the east, and in
the west the chain of the water-parting, to which Acon-
cagua l)elongs, but which lies some four miles farther
west. Aconcagua is thus shown to stand well within
the Argentine frontier. Altliough visilde on a clear
day from the Pacific, it sends the whole of its
drainage in the direction of the Atlantic, some 700
miles away, so that from the hydrographic standpoint
^ li. Gcogr. Jour., November 1898, p. 487. ,
ACONCAGUA.
CHILI 281
the " monarch of the Andes " clearly forms part uf the
Argentine republic. From its summit a superb view is
commanded of Mercedario, away to the north, and south-
wards of the main range as far as Tupungato, with the
intervening Juncal (20,500 feet), Navarro (19,500 feet)
and Pollera (19,000 feet), peaks and glaciers clearly
marking the boundary line between the two States.
A few miles north of Aconcagua the main range is
crossed by the Los Patos Pass (11,700 feet), which is
associated with perhaps the most memorable event in
the War of Independence. Although little used because
of its extremely rugged character, it was surmounted in
1817 by the Argentine General San Martin with his
whole army, who was thus enabled to surprise the
royalists awaiting him at the Cumhre Pass, some miles
farther south. " He took five thousand men, with
artillery, material for making bridges, and provisions,
safely across that pass, fought the battle of Ghacahuco
within three days afterwards, and entered the capital of
Chili within five days " ^ — an exploit comparable to the
passage of the Alps by Hannibal.
The above mentioned Cumbre, which lies about
midway between Aconcagua and Juncal, is destined to
become as famous in the future as Los Patos has been in
the past. Falling to 12,795 feet above sea-level, and
presenting less difficulties than any other depression in
this section of the main range, it has been chosen as
the most suitable point through which to carry the
now nearly completed Argento-Chilian trans-continental
railway. On the east side the line has already pene-
trated beyond Mendoza to Punta de las Vacas, 7858 feet
above the sea, while the Chilian section has reached the
Salto del Soldado, nearly twenty miles beyond Santa
1 Sii' C. Markham, Gcoffi: Jour., Novembei- 1898, p. 493.
282 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
Eosa de los Andes. Between these two terminal stations
the distance is only 44 miles, and althougli this gap
naturally presents the most formidable difficulties, in-
cluding a long tunnel under the Cumbre Pass, hopes are
entertained that this trans-Andean line will be finished
before the close of the nineteenth century.
At Tupungato the Andean system contracts to about
15 miles on the Argentine side, but still maintains a
consideral)le breadth in Chili, where range after range of
lofty lateral ridges occupy the whole space of 45 miles
between Santiago and the frontier. On the maps these
parallel ridges are not figured, and in fact a vast amount
of topographical work has still to be done before carto-
graphists will be able to give an approximately correct
picture of the Chilian Andes. " Hundreds and hundreds
of miles of these mountains are unknown. Many lofty
peaks, said to be over 20,000 feet in height, have never
been measured ; they have never been visited, have never
been approached by any one who was capable of describ-
ing them." ^ From Tupungato the FitzGerald party
sighted a great burning mountain, of which nothing
was known till quite recently. " On arriving at the
top of the ridge a volcano was seen about 20 miles
to the south-west in great activity. ... It had the
appearance of a great ridge, about 13,000 feet in heiglit,
running towards the north, when its height gradually
dwindled. A great fissure appeared in the middle of this
ridge, from which the smoke poured forth in dark brown
volumes," with a " strong, sulphurous, burning smell." ~
This is the Mount Bravarcl of the Argento- Chilian
surveyors, who have so named it in memory of the
Frencli geologist who lost his life during the earthquake
of Mendoza in 1861. But they speak of it, not as a
1 Sir C. JMurklumi, loc. cit. p. 493. - lb. \>. 484.
CHILI
283
very active, but rather as " a nearly extinct vf)lcauo "
(Moreno).
The Southern Andes — Igneous and Glacial Phenomena
South of Tupuugato the system still maintains a great
elevation, and here follows a succession of volcanoes,
MOUXT TIIONAIIOII.
mostly extinct or long quiescent, such as Smi Jose de
Maipu (17,644 feet); f^an Fernando; Tinguiririca
(14,700); Peteroa (11,925), reported to have shown
signs of life in 1762 and again in 1837; Descahezado
(12,760); Las Yeguas (11,350); Campanario (11,000),
and jYevado de Longavi (10,520), all apparently extinct.
284 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
Then follow the Nevada de Chilian (10,000), Antuco
(9000), Villarica (9320), and Osorno (7500), all of
which still occasionally emit vapours, while the four-
peaked Chilian was in a state of constant eruption, dis-
charging lavas and scoriae, during the years 1861-65.
On the other hand, the Tronador, or " Thunderer" (9790),
near the southern extremity of Chili proper, is so named,
not from its underground disturbances, hut from the
avalanches continually crashing down its slopes.
It would thus appear that throughout the whole of
the Chilian system igneous activity is dying out, while
glacial phenomena persist, or even show symptoms of
further expansion. Many of the cones have lost their
terminal craters, or else these vents have become choked
with frozen masses. Extensive glaciers descend the
flanks not only of the giants in the lower northern lati-
tudes, but also of the smaller groups in the extreme
south, where less elevation is compensated by higher
latitude and by a greater abundance of atmospheric
moisture, everywhere a necessary condition of glaciation.
The flanks of the Nevado de Chilian are furrowed by
several frozen streams, which have never melted even
during the fiercest igneous explosions, and Giissfeld, one
of the great pioneers of Chilian exploration, discovered
in the far south a wonderful glacier descending down to
the region of arable lands. At present the head of the
stream to which it gives rise stands 6260 feet above
sea-level ; but towards the middle of the nineteenth
century it reached as low as 5840 feet, so that the
glacier has retreated 420 feet in fifty years. But in the
Patagonian region some of the frozen rivers still descend,
as in Greenland, to the level of the sea, and sliow no in-
dications of shrinkage.
CHILI 285
The Chilian Archipelagoes
The long chain of southern archipelagoes begins about
42° S. lat. with the large island of Chiloe, whose very
name — Chili hue, " Part of Chili " — shows that it was
regarded even by the natives as a continuation of the
mainland. It is in fact nothing more than a detached
section of the coast range running at a mean height of
about 2000 feet for 80 miles in the direction of the
south. As in the neighbouring province of Valdivia, the
steeper escarpments face seawards, while the land slopes
gently eastwards to the gulfs of Anciid and of Corcovado,
which are themselves to be regarded as a now submerged
southern prolongation of the great central plain of Chili.
These island-studded inland waters, flowing between
the great Andes and the archipelagoes, that is, the frag-
mentary coast range, are continued all the way to Fuegia,
without any interruption except at the narrow neck ot
the Taytao Peninsula, which geologically represents a
short section of the coast range still connected with the
mainland. Between Chiloe and Taytao lies the extensive
Chonos Archipelago, which comprises over a thousand
islands, rocks, and reefs separated from the Patagonian
mainland by the narrow Moraleda Channel. The southern
extremity of this channel is separated from the San
Estevan inlet of the Gulf of PeSias by the isthmus of
Ofqui connecting Taytao with the coast of Patagonia.
Here rises Mount San Valentin, which sends down two
glacial streams, one south to the San Estevan inlet, the
other west to Lake San Eafael, which communicates
through the Rio de los Tempanos north wax ds witli the
Moraleda Channel. On reaching the lake the western
glacier glides along the bottom at a depth of nearly 700
feet, and is then broken into fragments by the upward
286 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
thrust caused by the greater density of the lacustrine
waters. Thus is kept up a perpetual thunder, echoed
from cliff to cliff of the encircling hills, wliile the liberated
tevi2)anos (" icebergs ") drift away to the Moraleda
Channel.
Interrupted by the spacious Gulf of Pcnas, which
penetrates through a number of fjord -like formations,
such as Jesuit Sound, the Boca de Canales, the Aro-
•pazado Channel, and the Calen Inlet, far into the re-
cesses of the main Cordillera, the insular chain is con-
tinued farther on to the Strait of Magellan by the three
large islands of Wellington, Hanover, and Queen Adelaide,
each fringed by countless clusters of smaller groups. In
these southern latitudes the terminology is mainly
English, the first serious hydrographic surveys having
been carried out by the British Admiralty during the
early decades of the nineteenth century. Associated with
the work are the names of King and Fitzroy, who were
accompanied by the great naturalist Charles Darwin, and
conducted the memorable expedition of ten years (1826-
36), during which they completed the first systematic
survey of the Magellanic lands from Fuegia to Chiloe.
Wellington, about 40 miles south of the Taytao
Peninsula, still remains the largest of all the islands
north of Fuegia, although considerably reduced in size by
the later surveys of Serrano and the German Alhafross
expedition. Several tracts on the west side were found
to be distinct groups separated from the main island by
the Fallos Channel and other navigable waters. On the
east side fiows the winding Messier Channel, which, at
the English Narroios, contracts to a width of less than
400 feet, and in some places rushes with the speed of a
mill-race between high beetling cliffs. But, like all these
inland passages, the channel is very deep, and presents a
CHILI 287
navigable waterway 150 miles long between Wellington
and the rugged shores of Patagonia.
Here the mainland offers a constantly varying prospect,
" indented by numerous caves and several deep narrow
sounds running far into the recesses of the Cordillera.
In the intermediate channel crowds of islets, some rising
to the size of mountains, some mere rocks peeping above
the water, present an endless variety of form and outline.
But what gives to the scenery a unique character is the
wealth of vegetation that adorns this seemingly inclement
region. From the water's edge to a height estimated at
1400 feet the rugged slopes were covered with an un-
broken mantle of green trees and shrubs. Above that
height the bare declivities were clothed with snow, mottled
at first by projecting rocks, but evidently lying deep upon
the higher ridges. I can find no language to give any
impression of the marvellous variety of the scenes that
followed in quick succession against the bright blue back-
ground of a cloudless sky, and lit up by a northern sun
that illumined each new prospect as we advanced. At
times one might have fancied one's self on a great river
in the interior of a continent, while a few minutes later,
in the openings between the islands, the eye could range
over miles of water to the mysterious recesses of the
Cordillera, with occasional glimpses of snowy peaks at
least twice the heiccht of the summits near at hand." ^
Magellan Strait — Tierra del Fuego
South of Queen Adelaide Island, which presents the
same general aspect as the other Magellanic lands, the
conspicuous headland of Cape Pillar, at the northern
extremity of Desolation Island, marks the western
i J. Ball, op. cit. p. 222.
288 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
entrance of Magellan Strait. This famous inter-oceanic
passage, by which Fuegia is entirely severed from the
mainland, consists of two nearly equal branches disposed
respectively in the direction from north-west to south-
east and from north-east to south-west, with a total
length of 340 miles. The junction takes place about
midway between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, at the
GLACIER BAY, STRAITS OF MAGELLAN.
Cape Fro ward headland of the Brunsvnck Peninsula,
which is the southernmost point of the American
Continent.
At first siglit the Archipelago of Tierra del Fueejo ^
1 After long search had failed to discover any clear indications of
"tire," it was asked why Magellan should have called this region the
" Land of Fire. " It was not, however, named by him Tierra del Fuego, but
Tierra dc Humos, " Land of Smoke," and the change is said to have been
made by Charles V., with the remark that "there is no smoke without
fire." The "smokes," certainly seen by the great navigator curling up
on the plains, are supposed to have risen from bonfires kindled by the
natives to signal the portent of strange beings approaching in great ships.
CHILI 289
seems to present a chaos of insular masses, disposed
without order or system. But a closer inspection shows
that it comprises two distinct secondary groups — one,
on the Pacific side, representing the south-eastern con-
tinuation of the Chilian Coast Eange, the other, on the
Atlantic side, representing a southern continuation of
the whole of the mainland, that is, both the Great Andes
and the Patagoniau plains. Between the two groups
flows Beagle Channel, which, with its western extension,
Darioin Sound, penetrates through several passages round
Londonderry, Steivart, and some smaller islands to the
Pacific, but is cut off from the Magellanic waters by the
Brecknock Peninsula. This peninsula, although forming
continuous land with the Atlantic section, belongs geologi-
cally to the Pacific group, and falls into line with the
outer chain of islands which stretch from Cape Pillar
for over 400 miles round to Cape Horn. In this respect
Brecknock should be compared with Taytao farther north,
both being survivals from a time when all the insular
groups from Chiloe to Staten Island formed part of the
Southern Continent.
But the separation must have taken place at a very
remote period, and the different characters of the Pata-
goniau and Fuegian faunas and floras clearly show that
Magellan Strait is of great age. The oliservations made
by the Nordenskjold expeditions of 1895-97 make it
evident that the discrepancies in these respects are much
greater than had hitherto been supposed. Many animal
forms — reptiles, frogs, and numerous invertebrates —
occurring on the mainland are unknown in Fueffia, and
the "plant-forms of different families exhibit the same
sharp demarcation " ^ between the two zones. The Strait,
however, does not form a complete parting -line, for
^ Geogr. Jour., April 1898, p. 437.
VOL. I U
290 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGliAPHY AND TRAVEL
many eastern Patagonian forms occur also in Fuegia,
and although neither the puma nor the rhea has crossed
the channel a small lizard has been found as far south
as Kio G-rande (53° 50' S.), the most southerly spot where
reptiles have yet been discovered.
Southwards the Pacific section of Fuegia, comprising
the relatively large islands of Gordon, Hoste, Kavarin,
and Wollaston, besides several small clusters, forms an
irregular triangle with its base resting on Beagle Channel
and its apex terminating at Gape Horn, southernmost
point of the New World (60" S. lat.). North of the
Brecknock Peninsula the Pacific section is completed
by the dreary region wliich was aptly named Desola-
tion Land by Captain Cook, and was long supposed to
form a continuous mass extending from Cape Pillar to
GocJcburji Ghannel. But later surveys have decomposed
it into at least three distinct islands, and possibly more
may yet be discovered, all separated by very narrow but
deep channels, which flow between the Pacific and the
western branch of Magellan Strait. The northern
member of the group retains the name of Desolation,
and this is followed by Santa Inez, a name which,
pending further exploration, covers everything between
Desolation and Clarence Islands. When Mr. Ball passed
through he was shown one of the narrow sounds " which
have lately been ascertained to penetrate entirely through
what used to be considered a sinuie island." ^
King Charles South Land
Although comprising only four distinct islands —
King Gharles South Land, Dawson, Clarence, and Stcden —
Eastern Fuegia, as the Atlantic section is often called,
1 Geoiir. Jour., April 1898, p. 141.
CHILI 291
greatly exceeds the Pacific section in extent. In fact
the first-mentioned island, which occupies the whole of
the Atlantic side and extends right across the archipelago
from Ca-pe S. Diego to the Brecknock Peninsula, is alone
very much larger than all the other islands taken
together. Its former connection with the mainland is
clearly shown by a study of its contour lines, which
on the east follow the concave curvature of the Pata-
gonian seaboard, and on the west continue the convex
trend of the Great Andes round to the Three Brothers
at Cape S. Diego, over against Staten Island, at. the
south-east extremity of the Andean system.
Corresponding in its physical aspect with the general
character of the mainland, King Charles South Land
presents on the Atlantic side the same dreary steppe-like
formation as Eastern Patagonia, and on the south and
west sides the same rugged mountainous appearance as
the Great Cordillera. Here the Andean system is clearly
continued along the northern margin of Beagle Channel
by the Darivin range, above which rise several peaks
nearly if not quite 7000 feet high. Such are, going
eastwards, the twin - peaked Sarmiento (6910 feet), '
Mount Darivin (6800), and Mount Frangais (7000 ?),
near the Argentine frontier, beyond which the highest
summits are Mount Cornu (4335) and the Three Brothers
(1640), at the south-eastern extremity of King Charles
South Land.
Sarmiento, the " Matterhorn of the Puegian Alps,"
impresses the imagination with awe and wonder more
profoundly than many far more elevated heights. Seen
especially from the great bend of Magellan Strait, it
produces an extremely imposing effect, its steep slopes
and two jagged peaks filling the background at the head
of the spacious sound flowing between Clarence and
292 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TPAVEL
Dawson Islands, and towering above the snowy crests
which flank both sides of the channel. Although igneous
formations abound in this southern section of the Pata-
gonian Andes, Sarmiento itself does not appear to be of
volcanic origin. " No volcanic rocks elsewhere in the
world can retain slopes so nearly approaching to the
vertical. It is, I believe, a portion of the original rock
skeleton that formed the axis of the Andean chain during
the long ages that preceded the great volcanic outbursts
that have covered over the framework of the western
side of South America." -^
King Charles South Land is divided by Dr. 0.
Nordenskjold of the Swedish expedition into three
distinct zones : (1) the just described southern highlands,
forest-clad on their lower slopes ; (2) the more level central
region, where the tops of the hills are alone covered with
timber ; and (3) the northern treeless zone. The two
northern zones are of Tertiary formation, covered with
Quaternary deposits identical with the ground moraine
of the old glacial region of North Europe.
Besides the groups of islands several peninsular forma-
tions, such as King William Land, Croker and Brunstuick
Peninsulas, are also regarded as forming part of the
Fuegian Archipelago. All these Magellanic lands, pro-
jecting from the Patagonian mainland southwards and
dividing, the strait into an eastern and a western branch,
belong to the same geological formations as the neigh-
bouring islands, and are nearly severed from the Continent
by deep inlets, such as Otivay Water, Sky ring Water, and
Obstruction Sound, all of which communicate by open or
intricate passages with the other inland Magellanic
waters. They now also belong politically to Chili, which
has established the centre of administration for the
1 J. Ball, op. cif. p. 24.5.
CHILI 293
Archipelago, not on any of the islands, but at PvMta
Arenas {Sandy Point) on the north side of Magellan
Strait, near the neck of Brunswick Peninsula. This site
has been chosen chiefly on account of the coal-fields which
have been discovered in the district, and which afford
proof that the Antarctic, like the Arctic regions, enjoyed
a warm climate in the Carboniferous epoch. Even in
Tertiary times the fossil plants and animals collected by
the Nordenskjold expedition of 1895-96 point to a some-
what higher temperature than the present. Later came
the glacial period, when an ice-sheet completely covered
the Archipelago, filling Magellan Strait, but nowhere
reaching the present Atlantic seaboard beyond the Gal-
legos estuary. At the close of the Glacial period Fuegia
stood some 200 feet lower than at present; but the
subsequent upheaval seems now to have ceased, or at
least to be progressing at a very slow rate.
Mas a Fuera — Juan Fernandez
To insular Chili also belong the already mentioned
Oceanic islets of San Felix and San Ambrosia, Mas a
Fuera and Juan Fernandez, as well as the more remote
Sala-y-Gomez and Faster Island, fully described in another
volume of the present series.^ San Ambrosio, culminating
with a peak 830 feet high, forms with San Felix and a
few scattered reefs a rocky archipelago 370 miles west
of Concepcion on the coast of Chili. The group is
uninhabited, and yields nothing but a little guano de-
posited by seals; but one of the rocks, 175 feet high, is
well known to English mariners, who have named it
Peterborough Cathedral from the curious resemblance it
bears to the facade of that edifice. The group was first
^ Australasia, vol. ii. p. 528 sq.
294 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TKAVEL
sighted in 1574 by Juan Fernandez, who in the same
year also discovered the much larger and more southern
archipelago which perpetuates his name. This group,
which faces the Gulf of Corcovado at a distance of about
350 miles, comprises the two islands of Mas a Tierra,
" Landward," and Mas a Fmra, " Outward," — that is,
seaward, nearly 100 miles farther west, with the islet
of Santa Clara more to the south.
Though not the largest, Mas a Fuera is by far the
highest member of the group, rising over 6000 feet
above the surrounding waters. But Mas a Tierra (3225
feet), also specially called J'lian Fernandez, is better
known to fame, thanks to its association with De Foe's
Fiohinson Crusoe. This was the island where Alexander
Selkirk led the solitary life described by himself. The
incident is now commemorated by a monument here
erected by the officers of the Challenger in 1875, when
she visited the spot on her cruise round the world. The
group is often visited by whalers and other vessels calling
for supplies, which are obtained from the inhabitants,
chiefly German colonists settled here in 1868. The
Archipelago has a total area of about 80 square miles —
Mas a Tierra, 38 ; Mas a Fuera, 34 ; Santa Clara, 8.
Hydrography — The Chilian Coast -Streams
Since the acquisition of the Atacama territory and
neighbouring districts, a considerable section of Nortli
Chili comes within the rainless zone, and here the coast-
streams present the same wady-like aspect as in Peru.
On the other hand, recent exploration has added greatly
to the number of perennial water-courses and glacial
streams which find their way to the Pacific in Southern
Chili and Patagonia. Such is the Corcovado, which was
CHILI 295
discovered by the Kriiger and Rethwich expedition of
1898, and flows from two glaciers near tlie coast to the
gulf of like name about 43" S. lat. It expands to a
width of 300 yards in its lower reaches, but higher up
is a mountain torrent subject to sudden freshets, and
obstructed by shoals and rapids. Such also are the
large Rio Las Heras, which flows to the Calen Inlet, and
was discovered by Moreno in 1897 ; the Trinidad and
others partly surveyed by the Argentine ship Golon-
drina in 1897; the TelcJto and Falena, both larger
and north of the already known Aysen and Haeinvlcs ;
the Puelo, Bodadahue, and Cisne, also north of the
Aysen. The Corcovado and the Bodadahue are entirely
comprised within the Chilian province of Llanquihue.
But the Palena, Cisne, Aysen, Las Heras, and others,
have their sources in the transversal depression of the
Tertiary tableland of Patagonia, and consequently belong
neither geologically nor topographically to the Andean
system, which in fact is pierced by them on their sea-
ward course to the Pacific. But the great majority
of the Chilian rivers farther north rise on the western
slopes, and in the central provinces acquire a consider-
able development by pursuing a winding course over the
great plain Iwfore forcing their way in deep rock}'
gorges through the Coast Eange to the Pacific. All
thus presenting much the same general character, the
special features of each may be conveniently tabulated as
under ^ : —
t> • T„„,ti, DiscliarL'e ill
Bueno Valdivia 7200 150 18,000
Bi-bio Concepcion 7150 220 16,000
Valdivia Valdivia 6000 82 1-3,250
^ From this table are necessarily excluded most of the more recentlj'
discovered southern rivers, detailed accounts of which are still awaited.
296
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TRAVEL
River
Province.
Basin,
sq. miles.
Length,
miles.
Discharge in
cubic feet
per second.
Aysen
Patagonia
6000 (?)
150 (?)
10,000 (?)
Maule
Maule
8000
140
10,000
Rapel
Colchagua
6600
134
9,220
Huemules
Patagonia
3000
100
9,000
MauUin
Llanquihue
1400
110
9,000
Itata
Nuble
4400
108
6,350
Corcovado
Patagonia
1500 (?)
80(?)
6,250 (?)
Cauten
Arauco
5000
200
6,200
(Imperial)
Token
VaUlivia
2100
134
3,520
Mataquito
Talca
2700
170
3,500
Maipo
Santiago
5250
155
960
Aconcagua
Valparaiso
3560
160
360
Chuapa
Aconcagua
3800
100
180
Limari
Coquimbo
2600
100
110
Coquimbo
Coquimbo
3500
90
70
Huasco
Atacama
4200
134
70
Copiapo
Atacama
4300
155
60(?)
Lakes
Formerly the whole of Chili appears to have been
strewn with lacustrine basins, traces of which may still
be detected even in the now arid Atacama region. But
in the northern and central districts nearly all have
disappeared, except the Laguna Negra, source of the Rio
Maipo in the province of Santiago. Farther south the
Gualletue lakelet in Arauco is followed by a continuous
chain of flooded basins, which are disposed along the
western foot of the Great Andes in the two southern
provinces of Valdivia and Llanquihue. Like the rivers,
of which they are feeders, these lakes generally increase
in volume southwards, while their great depth and
position under the slopes of the Cordillera show that
they owe their origin to the grinding action of the great
cflaciers which, during the Ice Age, advanced into the
CHILI 297
central plain much farther than at present. Such are,
in their order from north to south, Villarica, Calaiquen,
and Huanchue, which communicate with each other and
drain to the Eio Tolten ; Banco, Payehue, and Rujpanco,
sources of various head-streams of the Eio Bueno, which
has the largest drainage area and is the most copious
river in Chili ; lastly Llanquihue, largest of all these
lacustrine basins, and source of Eio Maullin, which,
relatively to the small extent of its catchment basin (only
1400 square miles), has the largest volume of all these
coast-streams (9000 cubic feet per second). Although
few systematic soundings have yet been carried out, all
the Chilian lakes are known to be extremely deep —
Laguna Negra 900 feet, and Llanquihue 360 close to
its rocky shores.
Climate
Although, excluding the newly annexed northern
districts. Chili lies entirely within the temperate zone,
its climate is everywhere profoundly modified by the
local conditions. The chief determining factors are the
general disposition of the land, disposed in the direction
of the meridian, and stretching across thirty degrees of
latitude ; the great central plain, confined between lofty
mountain ranges which largely control the direction of
the atmospheric movements ; and the vast development
of a seaboard, washed along its entire length by cool
Antarctic currents.
In general the temperature falls steadily while the
moisture increases southwards, so that a gradual transi-
tion takes place from the great heats and absolute aridity
of the northern lowland districts to the Arctic winters
and superabundant precipitation of the Magellanic lands.
Thus are explained the striking contrasts presented by
298 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
the Nortlierii Andes, towering to heights of 18,000 or
20,000 feet, but forming relatively few glaciers and
often largely free from snow, owing to the lack of
humidity, and the Patagonian Cordillera falling below
12,000 feet, but wrapped in a perennial snowy mantle,
thanks to the excessive moisture of a region where on
the uplands the precipitation takes the form of snow,
and on the lowlands the yearly rainfall exceeds 100
inches.
The same contrasts are presented by the coast-streams,
such as the Copiapo of the Atacama desert and the
Patagonian Huemules, the former with a basin over 4000
square miles in extent, but for a great part of the year
sending not a drop of water to the Pacific, the latter
rolling down a continuous volume estimated at 9000
cubic feet per second, collected in a drainage area not
exceeding 3000 square miles.
Between these extremes lies Chili proper, which both
on the coast and in the interior is favoured with one of
the healthiest and most delightful climates in the world.
Here are naturally situated the great centres of popula-
tion, Santiago and Valparaiso, and the provinces named
from them, together with the conterminous districts, are
pre-eminently suited for permanent settlement by colonists
from the temperate European lands. It is to this
central region that are applicable those glowing descrip-
tions which often cause such surprise to travellers visiting
many less favoured districts. The descriptions, however,
are perhaps a little overdraw^n, as so often occurs in the
case of abrupt transitions from dreary arid wastes to
more cheerful verdant prospects. Even these central
provinces suffer at times from protracted droughts, and
indeed from a general deficiency of moisture, the mean
annual rainfall being much less than is commonly
CHILI 299
supposed, and nowhere rising to 20 inches in any
of the districts nqrth of the Maule basin (35°-36° S.
lat.), as shown in the subjoined table of temperatures and
humidity : —
S. Lat.
Jleaii
temp.
Summer
temp.
Wintei
temp.
Rainfall
in inches
Iquique .
Coquimbo
Valparaiso
20° 23'
29° 56'
33°
66°
59°
57-6°
75°
65°
63°
59°
53°
52-5°
0-5
1-6
13-5
Santiago .
33° 27'
55-6°
66°
45°
14-5
Talca
35° 36'
56-5°
70°
45°
19-7
Valdivia .
39° 49'
52-9°
61 -5°
45°
115
Ancud (Chiloe)
Punta Arenas
41° 46'
53° 10'
50-7°
43°
56-5°
51°
45-9°
34° 9°
134
22-5
In this table is clearly seen the influence of the cold
southern marine and aerial currents in lowering the
summer heats on the west side of the continent. " While
the winter temperatures are not very different from those
of places similarly situated on the west side of Europe
and Xorth Africa, those of summer are lower by 8° or
10° Fahr., and the mean of the year is lower by 6° or 7°
than that of places in the same latitude on the east side
of South America. It is also apparent that much of
what has been stated in works of authority as to the
climate of this region is altogether incorrect." ^
In the Magellanic lands the winter temperature at
sea -level is relatively high, seldom falling much below
freezing-point, while that of summer is correspondingly
lew, seldom rising above 60° Fahr. But in this region
great contrasts are presented between the Pacific and
Atlantic seaboards, the former being marked by ex-
cessive moisture, the latter by a moderate rainfall — 20°
to 25° inches — and high winds. These gales, which are
^ Ball, op. eit. p. 145. Here it is pointed out that the mean tempera-
ture of Santiago given by Grisebach as 67 "5° is less than 56°, and the
rainfall, stated to be o%'er 40 inches, does not exceed 13'5 inches.
300 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
felt as far seawards as the Falkland Islands, are due to
the cold atmospheric current rushing down from the
western highlands to fill the vacuum caused by the rare-
faction of the dry and warmer air on the eastern low-
lands. Hence also arise those williwaws, or sudden
squalls, which sweep down like avalanches from the
lateral gorges, and are so much dreaded by seafarers in
Magellan Strait and the neighbouring waters.
Flora
Perhaps the most striking feature of the Chilian flora
is the large number of absolutely indigenous forms,
showing that for long ages the Atacama desert in the
north and the Great Andes in the east have largely
acted as botanical divides between this region and the
rest of the Continent. So destitute of vegetation are the
arid northern districts, that for 600 miles between Ainca
and Copiapo the all-pervading hue of the landscape is a
dull mon(jtonous gray, scarcely anywhere relieved by a
single patch of verdure. There are doubtless indications
that parts of this region were formerly less arid than at
present. But this appears to have been laigely due to
the development of irrigation works under the Incas, and
the whole region must have long formed as effective a
barrier against the migration of species as the Cordillera
itself.
Amongst the numerous local forms are the Skytanthus,
a dwarfish shrub with yellow flowers, like those of the
jessamine, but with no allies elsewhere except two very
different species in tropical Brazil ; several varieties of
the cactus family, ranging as far south as Santiago, a
proof that, as above seen, this district enjoys a drier
climate than is currently assumed. Peculiar to the same
CHILI 301
region are tlie highly characteristic Vivianece and
FrancooAiecB, which are by many botanists regarded as
distinct natural orders elsewhere quite unknown. Of
the Francoacecc, stemless herbaceous growths yielding a
black dye and a drug with sedative properties, as many
as two genera and five species have been enumerated,
all exclusively from Chili. The Vivianece, also herbaceous
or undershrabs, are still more numerous, comprising four
genera and fifteen species, some of which appear to have
wandered into South Brazil from their Chilian home.
Altogether, of about two hundred genera belonging to the
temperate zone of South America, the great majority are
confined exclusively to this remarkable botanic kingdom
of Central Chili, and amongst them are several groups,
which show only a very remote affinity with the corre-
sponding forms of other southern regions. The inference
seems obvious that an isolated vegetable world was
independently developed on the south-west Pacific sea-
board at a time when a great inland sea still flowed
between the eastern and western sections of the Con-
tinent.
It is in the Coquimbo district that the peculiar Chilian
types begin to make their appearance, and they would
seem to range thence southwards no farther than the
Biobio basin (province of Concepcion), so that this local
flora, like that of the Cape, was originally confined to
somewhat narrow limits — a strip of coastlands stretching
across six or eight degrees of latitude, with a mean breadth
of about 80 miles. Most of the endemic types have
obviously originated on the western slopes of the Andes,
whence some modified forms have crept down to the
lowlands. " Several of these, as was inevitable, have
been found on the eastern flanks of the great range, and
it is probable that further exploration will add to the
302 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
number. But it is remarkable that as yet so large a
proportion should be confined to Chilian territory." ^ Even
the flora of the little Juan Fernandez group, now mostly
replaced by European intruders, was of an independent
character, and more allied to that of New Zealand than
of South America. Here was a solitary palm of peculiar
type, and it is remarkable that in Chili also only one
member of the widely -diffused palm family has been
discovered. Yet nearly all the arborescent forms are
evergreens, such as the bushy jpeumo {Cryjxtocarya
peumus), a species of laurel with edible berries ; and the
Quillaja saponaria, a member of the rosaceous family,
highly valued for the cleansing properties of its bark.
A distinctive feature of the Chilian flora is also the
extraordinary variety of the species flourishing side by
side in the woodlands. Here are nowhere seen con-
tinuous stretches of the same trees, as in the European
pine or birch groves or in the Patagonian and Fuegian
lands, where the forest growths comprise very few
distinct forms, besides the widespread Winter's bark and
a so-called " oak," which is really a beech {Fagas clrimys).
Many exotics have been successfully introduced from
Europe and other parts of the Eastern Hemisphere.
Such are the chestnut, poplar, and oak, which thrives even
more vigorously than in Europe ; the apple, which runs
wild in Araucania ; the willow, the vine, wheat, and
several other economic plants.
Fauna
Except in the class of birds, the Chilian fauna is far
less independent than the flora. Even the huemul
{Cervus chilensis), a species of deer figuring in the
^ Ball, op. cit. p. 142.
CHILI
303
national arms, is found also in Peru, and is even more
abundant in Argentina than in Chili. But the iivdu,
smallest of the deer tribe, appears to be elsewhere un-
known. The ape family is unrepresented, and there are
no jaguars, venomous snakes, or turtles. Characteristic
rodents, although not confined to Chili, are the chinchilla
of the warm northern districts, and the coyini, perhaps
remotely allied to the beaver, and like it frequenting all
the river banks. Both are of some economic value,
thanks to their nnich prized furs, which are largely
exported to Europe. Lizards are mainly c(jnfined to the
hot arid zone, while toads and frogs in considerable
variety inhabit all the marsliy wooded tracts. The
vicuna is seldom met, l)eing mostly replaced by the
304 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL
allied giianaco, which has nowhere been domesticated, but
ranges in large herds as far south as Magellan Strait.
A large spider, whose bite is much dreaded, appears to be
confined to Chili, where it infests the cultivated lands
and especially the wheat-fields. There are no turtles,
and scarcely any fishes in the lakes and rivers, although
the marine waters abound in animal life — a peculiar
species of cod, a gigantic crayfish, and enormous banks of
mussels, sea-otters, and several varieties of the seal family.
Some of these forms range to the Juan Fernandez group,
where are met two species of humming-birds, one con-
fined to these islands, the other occurring also on the
mainland, together with a third species peculiar to Chili.
Besides the condor and parrots, ranging far to the
south, the Chilian avifauna presents an extraordinary
number of indigenous forms entirely confined to this
region, and no doubt intimately associated with the
characteristic leafy evergreen vegetation of all the central
districts. Conspicuous amongst the marine birds are the
albatross, both the white and the black species; the
giant petrel, closely resembling the black albatross ; the
so-called " cape-pigeon " {Daption capeme), which has an
immense range in the southern hemisphere, and the
Colomba, with plumage like that of a turtle-dove but
nearly as large as the Cape pigeon.
Inhabitants — The Araucanians
In pre-Columbian times the Kio Maule (35° S. lat.)
formed the southern boundary of the Peruvian empire,
and the etlmical parting-line between its Quichua-Aymara
inhabitants and the Aucaes or " Eebels," as they called
their independent southern neighbours.-^ From Auca
1 It is no longer possible to determine the racial affinities of the
CHILI 305
come the Spanish forms Aucanes, Araucanes, and their
territory, Araucania, whence the English term Arau-
canians. Although recognising neither hereditary tribal
chiefs nor supreme rulers, and constituting a mere
aggregate of family groups without apparent political
cohesion of any kind, these " Warriors " already formed
in remote times a compact nationality sufficiently
organised for all defensive purposes, and strong enough
to maintain their independence first against the con-
quering Incas, and afterwards against the Spanish
Conquistadores themselves. Pizarro's associate, Almagro,
extended his march in 1535 to the Maule, and he was
followed in 1540 by Pedro de Valdivia, who founded
Santiago and in the course of ten years fought his way
to the Biobio basin, while his lieutenant, Aldarete, even
penetrated into Araucania proper. But the heart of the
nation remained untouched by these events, and con-
tinued for over a century after that time to offer a stout
and successful resistance to the invaders, who are said to
have lost more men during the fierce struggle than in all
their wars of conquest elsewhere in the New World.
They had at last to give up the attempt to reduce the
stubborn Araucans, and the protracted warfare, com-
memorated by Alonzo de Ercilla's epic poem, Araucana,
was brought to a close with the treaties of 1641 and
1655, recognising the autonomy of the Moluche nation
within the limits of the present province of Arauco.
This territory, however, which has an area of about
60,000 square miles between Arauco Bay and the Eio
Valdivia, has since been encroached upon, not by force
Copayapus, Coquimbos, and others who dwelt north of the Rio Mania, and
some of whose tribal names survive in th'^ local nomenclature. Most of these
aborigines had submitted to the authority of the Incas fully a century
before the ai'rival of the Spaniards, to whom they offered no resistence
after the overthrow of the Peruvian empire.
VOL. I X
306 co:\rPENDiuM of geography and ti:.\vel
of arms but by a peaceful forward moveuient, which has
left scarcely a nominal independence to the natives, and
is gradually absorbing them in the rest of the Chilian
population. Interminglings had akeady taken place
through the capture of white or half-caste Spanish women
during the border warfare, and the process has since been
continued by friendly alliances between the two peoples.
The Moluche domain is now nearly divided into two
sections by the railways advancing from the coast and
from the Andes towards the central plain ; all strategical
points have long been occupied, and no serious effort has
Ijeen made to recover a political independence now
perhaps less valued than formerly, since the abortive
attempt made some years ago to set up a separate
" kingdom " under a French adventurer.
From their present peaceful attitude, and their devo-
tion to agriculture, and especially stock-breeding, in which
they excel, the Araucanians would appear to have
accepted the inevitable, satisfied to exchange a precarious
autonomy for the status of free and respected Chilian
citizens. The process of assimilation, already completed
in the Chiloe and Chonos Archipelagos, must spread on
the mainland all the more rapidly, since the so-called
tribal groups are nothing more than territorial divisions.
Such are the Picun-che, or "North-men"; the Huilli-
che, " South-men " ; the Molu-clie, " West-men " ; and the
Pehuen-che, " Pine-men," that is, the people of the central
pine-groves, most numerous and powerful of all. On the
eastern slopes of the Andes were the Pi(c/-cAe, "East-men,"
who afterwards ranged down the Eio Negro, and thus came
in contact with the Pampas Indians. For the Moluches
these Pampeans were also " East-men," whence the con-
fusion between the two groups still prevalent in ethno-
graphic writings. But their radically distinct languages,
CHILI 307 
